ft  • 


(Mt^tgO^juA^ 


JOHN   RUSKIN 

Prom  a  sketch  by  himself,  published  in  the  "  Life  and 
Work  of  John  Ruskin,"  by  W.  G.  Collingwood,  M.A. 
By  permission  of  Hough  ton,  Mifflin  &  Co, 


t 


3be  Centura  Glassies 


SESAME  AND  LILIES 


AND 


THE  CROWN  OF  WILD 
OLIVE 

BY 

JOHN  RUSKIN 


NEW  YORK 

Ube  Century  Co. 

MCMI 


The  tost  adopted  in  this  volume  is  that  of  the  last  edition  of 
"Sesame  and  Lilies"  and  "The  Crown  of  Wild  Olive"  pub- 
lished during  Ruskin's  lifetime. 


Published  October,  1901. 


CONTENTS 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 

PAGE 

PREFACE v 

LECTURE  I 1 

Sesame :  Of  Kings'  Treasuries. 

LECTURE  II 81 

Lilies :  Of  Queens'  Gardens. 

LECTURE  III 135 

The  Mystery  of  Life  and  its  Arts. 


THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE 

INTRODUCTION 195 

LECTURE  1 211 

Work. 

LECTURE  II 259 

Traffic. 

LECTURE  III 301 

War. 

LECTURE  IV 355 

The  Future  of  England. 


PREFACE 


BEING  now  fifty-one  years  old,  and  little 
likely  to  change  my  mind  hereafter  on 
any  important  subject  of  thought  (unless 
through  weakness  of  age),  I  wish  to  publish  a 
connected  series  of  such  parts  of  my  works  as 
now  seem  to  me  right,  and  likely  to  be  of  perma- 
nent use.  In  doing  so  I  shall  omit  much,  but  not 
attempt  to  mend  what  I  think  worth  reprinting. 
A  young  man  necessarily  writes  otherwise  than 
an  old  one,  and  it  would  be  worse  than  wasted 
tune  to  try  to  recast  the  juvenile  language  :  nor 
is  it  to  be  thought  that  I  am  ashamed  even  of 
what  I  cancel ;  for  great  part  of  my  earlier  work 
was  rapidly  written  for  temporary  purposes,  and 
is  now  unnecessary,  though  true,  even  to  truism. 
What  I  wrote  about  religion  was,  on  the  con- 
trary, painstaking,  and,  I  think,  forcible,  as  com- 
pared with  most  religious  writing,  especially  in 
its  frankness  and  fearlessness  :  but  it  was  wholly 
mistaken ;  for  I  had  been  educated  in  the  doc- 
trines of  a  narrow  sect,  and  had  read  history  as 
obliquely  as  sectarians  necessarily  must. 

Mingled  among  these  either  unnecessary  or 
erroneous  statements,  I  find,  indeed,  some  that 
might  be  still  of  value  ;  but  these,  in  my  earlier 
books,  disfigured  by  affected  language,  partly 
through  the  desire  to  be  thought  a  fine  writer, 
and  partly,  as  in  the  second  volume  of  "Modern 
Painters,"  in  the  notion  of  returning  as  far  as 
I  could  to  what  I  thought  the  better  style  of  old 


PREFACE 


English  literature,  especially  to  that  of  my  then 
favorite,  in  prose,  Richard  Hooker. 

For  these  reasons, —  though,  as  respects  either 
art,  policy,  or  morality,  as  distinct  from  religion, 
I  not  only  still  hold,  but  would  even  wish 
strongly  to  reaffirm  the  substance  of  what  I  said 
in  my  earliest  books, —  I  shall  reprint  scarcely 
anything  in  this  series  out  of  the  first  and  second 
volumes  of  "Modern  Painters";  and  shall  omit 
much  of  the  "Seven  Lamps"  and  "Stones  of 
Venice";  but  all  my  books  written  within  the 
last  fifteen  years  will  be  republished  without 
change,  as  new  editions  of  them  are  called  for, 
with  here  and  there  perhaps  an  additional  note, 
and  having  their  text  divided,  for  convenient 
reference,  into  paragraphs,  consecutive  through 
each  volume.1  I  shall  also  throw  together  the 
shorter  fragments  that  bear  on  each  other,  and 
fill  in  with  such  unprinted  lectures  or  studies  as 
seem  to  me  worth  preserving,  so  as  to  keep  the 
volumes,  on  an  average,  composed  of  about  a 
hundred  leaves  each. 

The  first  book  of  which  a  new  edition  is  re- 
quired chances  to  be  "  Sesame  and  Lilies,"  from 
which  I  now  detach  the  whole  preface,  about  the 
Alps,  for  use  elsewhere ;  and  to  which  I  add  a 
lecture  given  in  Ireland  on  a  subject  closely  con- 
nected with  that  of  the  book  itself.  I  am  glad 
that  it  should  be  the  first  of  the  complete  series, 
for  many  reasons ;  though  in  now  looking  over 
these  two  lectures,  I  am  painfully  struck  by  the 
waste  of  good  work  in  them.  They  cost  me  much 
thought  and  much  strong  emotion  ;  but  it  was 
foolish  to  suppose  that  I  could  rouse  my  audi- 
ences in  a  little  while  to  any  sympathy  with  the 
temper  into  which  I  had  brought  myself  by  years 
1  The  numbers  of  the  paragraphs  are  not  given  in  this  reprint, 
vl 


PREFACE 


of  thinking  over  subjects  full  of  pain  ;  while,  if  I 
missed  my  purpose  at  the  time,  it  was  little  to  be 
hoped  I  could  attain  it  afterwards,  since  phrases 
written  for  oral  delivery  become  ineffective  when 
quietly  read.  Yet  I  should  only  take  away  what 
good  is  in  them  if  I  tried  to  translate  them  into 
the  language  of  books  ;  nor,  indeed,  could  I  at  all 
have  done  so  at  the  time  of  their  delivery,  my 
thoughts  then  habitually  and  impatiently  putting 
themselves  into  forms  fit  only  for  emphatic 
speech  ;  and  thus  I  am  startled,  in  my  review  of 
them,  to  find  that,  though  there  is  much  (forgive 
me  the  impertinence)  which  seems  to  me  accu- 
rately and  energetically  said,  there  is  scarcely 
anything  put  in  a  form  to  be  generally  convin- 
cing, or  even  easily  intelligible ;  and  I  can  well 
imagine  a  reader  laying  down  the  book  without 
being  at  all  moved  by  it,  still  less  guided,  to  any 
definite  course  of  action. 

I  think,  however,  if  I  now  say  briefly  and 
clearly  what  I  meant  my  hearers  to  understand, 
and  what  I  wanted,  and  still  would  fain  have, 
them  to  do,  there  may  afterwards  be  found  some 
better  service  in  the  passionately  written  text. 

The  first  lecture  says,  or  tries  to  say,  that,  life 
being  very  short,  and  the  quiet  hours  of  it  few, 
we  ought  to  waste  none  of  them  in  reading  value- 
less books  ;  and  that  valuable  books  should,  in  a 
civilized  country,  be  within  the  reach  of  every 
one,  printed  in  excellent  form,  for  a  just  price ; 
but  not  in  any  vile,  vulgar,  or,  by  reason  of  small- 
ness  of  type,  physically  injurious  form,  at  a  vile 
price.  For  we  none  of  us  need  many  books,  and 
those  which  we  need  ought  to  be  clearly  printed, 
on  the  best  paper,  and  strongly  bound.  And 
though  we  are,  indeed,  now,  a  wretched  and 
poverty-struck  nation,  and  hardly  able  to  keep 


PREFACE 


soul  and  body  together,  still,  as  no  person  in 
decent  circumstances  would  put  on  his  table  con- 
fessedly bad  wine,  or  bad  meat,  without  being 
ashamed,  so  he  need  not  have  on  his  shelves  ill- 
printed  or  loosely  and  wretchedly  stitched  books ; 
for  though  few  can  be  rich,  yet  every  man  who 
honestly  exerts  himself  may,  I  think,  still  pro- 
vide, for  himself  and  his  family,  good  shoes,  good 
gloves,  strong  harness  for  his  cart-  or  carriage- 
horses,  and  stout  leather  binding  for  his  books. 
And  I  would  urge  upon  every  young  man,  as  the 
beginning  of  his  due  and  wise  provision  for  his 
household,  to  obtain  as  soon  as  he  can,  by  the 
severest  economy,  a  restricted,  serviceable,  and 
steadily  —  however  slowly — increasing  series  of 
books  for  use  through  life ;  making  his  little 
library,  of  all  the  furniture  in  his  room,  the  most 
studied  and  decorative  piece ;  every  volume  hav- 
ing its  assigned  place,  like  a  little  statue  in  its 
niche,  and  one  of  the  earliest  and  strictest  lessons 
to  the  children  of  the  house  being  how  to  turn 
the  pages  of  their  own  literary  possessions  lightly 
and  deliberately,  with  no  chance  of  tearing  or 
dog's-ears. 

That  is  my  notion  of  the  founding  of  Kings' 
Treasuries ;  and  the  first  lecture  is  intended  to 
show  somewhat  the  use  and  preciousness  of  their 
treasures :  but  the  two  following  ones  have  wider 
scope,  being  written  in  the  hope  of  awakening 
the  youth  of  England,  so  far  as  my  poor  words 
might  have  any  power  with  them,  to  take  some 
thought  of  the  purposes  of  the  life  into  which 
they  are  entering,  and  the  nature  of  the  world 
they  have  to  conquer. 

These  two  lectures  are  fragmentary  and  ill 
arranged,  but  not,  I  think,  diffuse  or  much  com- 
pressible. The  entire  gist  and  conclusion  of  them, 


PREFACE 


however,  is  in  the  last  six  paragraphs,  135  to  the 
end,1  of  the  third  lecture,  which  I  would  beg  the 
reader  to  look  over  not  once  nor  twice  (rather 
than  any  other  part  of  the  book),  for  they  con- 
tain the  best  expression  I  have  yet  been  able  to 
put  in  words  of  what,  so  far  as  is  within  my 
power,  I  mean  henceforward  both  to  do  myself, 
and  to  plead  with  all  over  whom  I  have  any 
influence  to  do  also  according  to  their  means : 
the  letters  begun  on  the  first  day  of  this  year,  to 
the  workmen  of  England,  having  the  object  of 
originating,  if  possible,  this  movement  among 
them,  in  true  alliance  with  whatever  trustworthy 
element  of  help  they  can  find  in  the  higher 
classes.  After  these  paragraphs,  let  me  ask  you 
to  read,  by  the  fiery  light  of  recent  events,  the 
fable  at  page  170  (§  117),2andthen  gg  129-131  ;3  and 
observe,  my  statement  respecting  the  famine  at 
Orissa  is  not  rhetorical,  but  certified  by  official 
documents  as  within  the  truth.  Five  hundred 
thousand  persons,  at  least,  died  by  starvation  in 
our  British  dominions,  wholly  in  consequence  of 
carelessness  and  want  of  forethought.  Keep  that 
well  in  your  memory ;  and  note  it  as  the  best 
possible  illustration  of  modern  political  economy 
in  true  practice,  and  of  the  relations  it  has  ac- 
complished between  Supply  and  Demand.  Then 
begin  the  second  lecture,  and  all  will  read  clear 
enough,  I  think,  to  the  end ;  only,  since  that 
second  lecture  was  written,  questions  have  arisen 
respecting  the  education  and  claims  of  women 
which  have  greatly  troubled  simple  minds  and 
excited  restless  ones.  I  am  sometimes  asked  my 
thoughts  on  this  matter,  and  I  suppose  that  some 
girl  readers  of  the  second  lecture  may  at  the  end 
of  it  desire  to  be  told  summarily  what  I  would 

1  Pages  183-192.  2  Pages  161, 162.  3  Pages  175-179. 


PREFACE 


have  them  do  and  desire  in  the  present  state 
of  things.  This,  then,  is  what  I  would  say  to 
any  girl  who  had  confidence  enough  in  me  to 
believe  what  I  told  her,  or  to  do  what  I  asked 
her. 

First,  be  quite  sure  of  one  thing,  that,  however 
much  you  may  know,  and  whatever  advantages 
you  may  possess,  and  however  good  you  may  be, 
you  have  not  been  singled  out,  by  the  God  who 
made  you,  from  all  the  other  girls  in  the  world, 
to  be  especially  informed  respecting  His  own  na- 
ture and  character.  You  have  not  been  born  in  a 
luminous  point  upon  the  surface  of  the  globe, 
where  a  perfect  theology  might  be  expounded  to 
you  from  your  youth  up,  and  where  everything 
you  were  taught  would  be  true,  and  everything 
that  was  enforced  upon  you,  right.  Of  all  the  in- 
solent, all  the  foolish  persuasions  that  by  any 
chance  could  enter  and  hold  your  empty  little 
heart,  this  is  the  proudest  and  foolishest, —  that 
you  have  been  so  much  the  darling  of  the  Heavens, 
and  favorite  of  the  Fates,  as  to  be  born  in  the 
very  nick  of  time,  and  in  the  punctual  place, 
when  and  where  pure  Divine  truth  had  been 
sifted  from  the  errors  of  the  Nations ;  and  that 
your  papa  had  been  providentially  disposed  to 
buy  a  house  in  the  convenient  neighborhood  of 
the  steeple  under  which  that  Immaculate  and 
final  verity  would  be  beautifully  proclaimed.  Do 
not  think  it,  child  ;  it  is  not  so.  This,  on  the 
contrary,  is  the  fact, —  unpleasant  you  may  think 
it;  pleasant,  it  seems  to  me, —  that  you,  with  all 
your  pretty  dresses,  and  dainty  looks,  and  kindly 
thoughts,  and  saintly  aspirations,  are  not  one 
whit  more  thought  of  or  loved  by  the  great  Maker 
and  Master  than  any  poor  little  red,  black,  or 
blue  savage,  running  wild  in  the  pestilent  woods, 


PREFACE 


or  naked  on  the  hot  sands  of  the  earth  :  and  that, 
of  the  two,  you  probably  know  less  about  God 
than  she  does  ;  the  only  difference  being  that  she 
thinks  little  of  Him  that  is  right,  and  you  much 
that  is  wrong. 

That,  then,  is  the  first  thing  to  make  sure  of ; — 
that  you  are  not  yet  perfectly  well  informed  on 
the  most  abstruse  of  all  possible  subjects,  and  that 
if  you  care  to  behave  with  modesty  or  propriety, 
you  had  better  be  silent  about  it. 

The  second  thing  which  you  may  make  sure  of 
is,  that  however  good  you  may  be,  you  have 
faults ;  that  however  dull  you  may  be,  you  can 
find  out  what  some  of  them  are ;  and  that  how- 
ever slight  they  may  be,  you  had  better  make 
some  —  not  too  painful,  but  patient  —  effort  to  get 
quit  of  tnem.  And  so  far  as  you  have  confidence 
in  me  at  all,  trust  me  for  this,  that  how  many 
soever  you  may  find  or  fancy  your  faults  to  be, 
there  are  only  two  that  are  of  real  consequence, — 
Idleness  and  Cruelty.  Perhaps  you  may  be  proud. 
Well,  we  can  get  much  good  out  of  pride,  if  only 
it  be  not  religious.  Perhaps  you  may  be  vain ; 
it  is  highly  probable ;  and  very  pleasant  for  the 
people  who  like  to  praise  you.  Perhaps  you  are 
a  little  envious  :  that  is  really  very  shocking  ;  but 
then  —  so  is  everybody  else.  Perhaps,  also,  you 
are  a  little  malicious,  which  I  am  truly  concerned 
to  hear,  but  should  probably  only  the  more,  if  I 
knew  you,  enjoy  your  conversation.  But  what- 
ever else  you  may  be,  you  must  not  be  useless, 
and  you  must  not  be  cruel.  If  there  is  any  one 
point  which,  in  six  thousand  years  of  think- 
ing about  right  and  wrong,  wise  and  good  men 
have  agreed  upon,  or  successively  by  experi- 
ence discovered,  it  is  that  God  dislikes  idle 
and  cruel  people  more  than  any  others: — that 


PREFACE 


His  first  order  is,  "  Work  while  you  have  light"  ; 
and  His  second,  "Be  merciful  while  you  have 
mercy." 

"Work  while  you  have  light,"  especially  while 
you  have  the  light  of  morning.  There  are  few 
things  more  wonderful  to  me  than  that  old  people 
never  tell  young  ones  how  precious  their  youth 
is.  They  sometimes  sentimentally  regret  their 
own  earlier  days ;  sometimes  prudently  forget 
them ;  often  foolishly  rebuke  the  young,  often 
more  foolishly  indulge,  often  most  foolishly 
thwart  and  restrain ;  but  scarcely  ever  warn  or 
watch  them.  Remember,  then,  that  I,  at  least, 
have  warned  you,  that  the  happiness  of  your  life, 
and  its  power,  and  its  part  and  rank  in  earth  or 
in  heaven,  depend  on  the  way  you  pass  your 
days  now.  They  are  not  to  be  sad  days :  far  from 
that,  the  first  duty  of  young  people  is  to  be  de- 
lighted and  delightful ;  but  they  are  to  be  in  the 
deepest  sense  solemn  days.  There  is  no  solem- 
nity so  deep,  to  a  rightly  thinking  creature,  as 
that  of  dawn.  But  not  only  in  that  beautiful 
sense,  but  in  all  their  character  and  method,  they 
are  to  be  solemn  days.  Take  your  Latin  diction- 
ary, and  look  out  "  solennis,"  and  fix  the  sense  of 
the  word  well  in  your  mind,  and  remember  that 
every  day  of  your  early  life  is  ordaining  irrevo- 
cably, for  good  or  evil,  the  custom  and  practice 
of  your  soul ;  ordaining  either  sacred  customs  of 
dear  and  lovely  recurrence,  or  trenching  deeper 
and  deeper  the  furrows  for  seed  of  sorrow.  Now, 
therefore,  see  that  no  day  passes  in  which  you  do 
not  make  yourself  a  somewhat  better  creature ; 
and  in  order  to  do  that,  find  out,  first,  what  you 
are  now.  Do  not  think  vaguely  about  it ;  take 
pen  and  paper,  and  write  down  as  accurate  a 
description  of  yourself  as  you  can,  with  the  date 
xii 


PREFACE 


to  it.  If  you  dare  not  do  so,  find  out  why  you 
dare  not,  and  try  to  get  strength  of  heart  enough 
to  look  yourself  fairly  in  the  face  in  mind  as  well 
as  body.  I  do  not  doubt  but  that  the  mind  is  a 
less  pleasant  thing  to  look  at  than  the  face,  and 
for  that  very  reason  it  needs  more  looking  at ;  so 
always  have  two  mirrors  on  your  toilet-table,  and 
see  that  with  proper  care  you  dress  body  and 
mind  before  them  daily.  After  the  dressing  is 
once  over  for  the  day,  think  no  more  about  it : 
as  your  hair  will  blow  about  your  ears,  so  your 
temper  and  thoughts  will  get  ruffled  with  the 
day's  work,  and  may  need,  sometimes,  twice 
dressing  ;  but  I  don't  want  you  to  carry  about  a 
mental  pocket-comb  ;  only  to  be  smooth  braided 
always  in  the  morning. 

Write  down  then,  frankly,  what  you  are,  or,  at 
least,  what  you  think  yourself,  not  dwelling  upon 
those  inevitable  faults  which  I  have  just  told  you 
are  of  little  consequence,  and  which  the  action  of 
a  right  life  will  shake  or  smooth  away  ;  but  that 
you  may  determine  to  the  best  of  your  intelligence 
what  you  are  good  for  and  can  be  made  into. 
You  will  find  that  the  mere  resolve  not  to  be  use- 
less, and  the  honest  desire  to  help  other  people, 
will,  in  the  quickest  and  delicatest  ways,  improve 
yourself.  Thus,  from  the  beginning,  consider  all 
your  accomplishments  as  means  of  assistance  to 
others ;  read  attentively,  in  this  volume,  para- 
graphs 74,  75,  19,  and  79, T  and  you  will  understand 
what  I  mean,  with  respect  to  languages  and 
music.  In  music  especially  you  will  soon  find 
what  personal  benefit  there  is  in  being  service- 
able :  it  is  probable  that,  however  limited  your 
powers,  you  have  voice  and  ear  enough  to  sus- 
tain a  note  of  moderate  compass  in  a  concerted 

1  Pages  110-112,  26,  27, 115. 


PREFACE 


piece ; — that,  then,  is  the  first  thing  to  make  sure 
you  can  do.  Get  your  voice  disciplined  and  clear, 
and  think  only  of  accuracy ;  never  of  effect  or 
expression  :  if  you  have  any  soul  worth  express- 
ing, it  will  show  itself  in  your  singing  ;  but  most 
likely  there  are  very  few  feelings  in  you,  at 
present,  needing  any  particular  expression ;  and 
the  one  thing  you  have  to  do  is  to  make  a  clear- 
voiced  little  instrument  of  yourself,  which  other 
people  can  entirely  depend  upon  for  the  note 
wanted.  So,  in  drawing,  as  soon  as  you  can  set 
down,  the  right  shape  of  anything,  and  thereby 
explain  its  character  to  another  person,  or  make 
the  look  of  it  clear  and  interesting  to  a  child,  you 
will  begin  to  enjoy  the  art  vividly  for  its  own 
sake,  and  all  your  habits  of  mind  and  powers  of 
memory  will  gain  precision  :  but  if  you  only  try 
to  make  showy  drawings  for  praise,  or  pretty 
ones  for  amusement,  your  drawing  will  have 
little  of  real  interest  for  you,  and  no  educational 
power  whatever. 

Then,  besides  this  more  delicate  work,  resolve 
to  do  every  day  some  that  is  useful  in  the  vulgar 
sense.  Learn  first  thoroughly  the  economy  of 
the  kitchen  ;  the  good  and  bad  qualities  of  every 
common  article  of  food,  and  the  simplest  and 
best  modes  of  their  preparation :  when  you  have 
time,  go  and  help  in  the  cooking  of  poorer  fami- 
lies, and  show  them  how  to  make  as  much  of 
everything  as  possible,  and  how  to  make  little, 
nice ;  coaxing  and  tempting  them  into  tidy  and 
pretty  ways,  and  pleading  for  well-folded  table- 
cloths, however  coarse,  and  for  a  flower  or  two 
out  of  the  garden  to  strew  on  them.  If  you 
manage  to  get  a  clean  table-cloth,  bright  plates 
on  it,  and  a  good  dish  in  the  middle,  of  your  own 
cooking,  you  may  ask  leave  to  say  a  short  grace ; 


PREFACE 


and  let  your  religious  ministries  be  confined  to 
that  much  for  the  present. 

Again,  let  a  certain  part  of  your  day  (as  little 
as  you  choose,  but  not  to  be  broken  in  upon)  be 
set  apart  for  making  strong  and  pretty  dresses 
for  the  poor.  Learn  the  sound  qualities  of  all 
useful  stuffs,  and  make  everything  of  the  best 
you  can  get,  whatever  its  price.  I  have  many 
reasons  for  desiring  you  to  do  this, —  too  many  to 
be  told  just  now, —  trust  me,  and  be  sure  you  get 
everything  as  good  as  can  be :  and  if,  in  the 
villainous  state  of  modern  trade,  you  cannot  get 
it  good  at  any  price,  buy  its  raw  material,  and 
set  some  of  the  poor  women  about  you  to  spin 
and  weave,  till  you  have  got  stuff  that  can  be 
trusted :  and  then,  every  day,  make  some  little 
piece  of  useful  clothing,  sewn  with  your  own 
fingers  as  strongly  as  it  can  be  stitched  ;  and  em- 
broider it  or  otherwise  beautify  it  moderately 
with  fine  needlework,  such  as  a  girl  may  be 
proud  of  having  done.  And  accumulate  these 
things  by  you  until  you  hear  of  some  honest  per- 
sons in  need  of  clothing,  which  may  often  too 
sorrowfully  be  ;  and,  even  though  you  should  be 
deceived,  and  give  them  to  the  dishonest,  and 
hear  of  their  being  at  once  taken  to  the  pawn- 
broker's, never  mind  that,  for  the  pawnbroker 
must  sell  them  to  some  one  who  has  need  of  them. 
That  is  no  business  of  yours  ;  what  concerns  you 
is  only  that  when  you  see  a  half-naked  child,  you 
should  have  good  and  fresh  clothes  to  give  it,  if 
its  parents  will  let  it  be  taught  to  wear  them.  If 
they  will  not,  consider  how  they  came  to  be  of 
such  a  mind,  which  it  will  be  wholesome  for  you 
beyond  most  subjects  of  inquiry  to  ascertain. 
And  after  you  have  gone  on  doing  this  a  little 
while,  you  will  begin  to  understand  the  meaning 


PREFACE 


of  at  least  one  chapter  of  your  Bible,  Proverbs 
xxxi.,  without  need  of  any  labored  comment, 
sermon,  or  meditation. 

In  these,  then  (and  of  course  in  all  minor  ways 
besides,  that  you  can  discover  in  your  own  house- 
hold), you  must  be  to  the  best  of  your  strength 
usefully  employed  during  the  greater  part  of  the 
day,  so  that  you  may  be  able  at  the  end  of  it  to 
say,  as  proudly  as  any  peasant,  that  you  have  not 
eaten  the  bread  of  idleness. 

Then,  secondly,  I  said,  you  are  not  to  be  cruel. 
Perhaps  you  think  there  is  no  chance  of  your 
being  so ;  and  indeed  I  hope  it  is  not  likely  that 
you  should  be  deliberately  unkind  to  any  crea- 
ture ;  but  unless  you  are  deliberately  kind  to 
every  creature,  you  will  often  be  cruel  to  many. 
Gruel,  partly  through  want  of  imagination  (a  far 
rarer  and  weaker  faculty  in  women  than  men), 
and  yet  more,  at  the  present  day,  through  the 
subtle  encouragement  of  your  selfishness  by  the 
religious  doctrine  that  all  which  we  now  suppose 
to  be  evil  will  be  brought  to  a  good  end  ;  doctrine 
practically  issuing,  not  in  less  earnest  efforts  that 
the  immediate  unpleasantness  may  be  averted 
from  ourselves,  but  in  our  remaining  satisfied  in 
the  contemplation  of  its  ultimate  objects,  when 
it  is  inflicted  on  others. 

It  is  not  likely  that  the  more  accurate  methods 
of  recent  mental  education  will  now  long  permit 
young  people  to  grow  up  in  the  persuasion  that, 
in  any  danger  or  distress,  they  may  expect  to  be 
themselves  saved  by  the  Providence  of  God, 
while  those  around  them  are  lost  by  His  improvi- 
dence ;  but  they  may  be  yet  long  restrained  from 
rightly  kind  action,  and  long  accustomed  to  en- 
dure both  their  own  pain  occasionally,  and  the 
pain  of  others  always,  with  an  unwise  patience, 
xvi 


PREFACE 


by  misconception  of  the  eternal  and  incurable 
nature  of  real  evil.  Observe,  therefore,  carefully 
in  this  matter ;  there  are  degrees  of  pain,  as  de- 
grees of  faultfulness,  which  are  altogether  con- 
querable, and  which  seem  to  be  merely  forms  of 
wholesome  trial  or  discipline.  Your  fingers  tingle 
when  you  go  out  on  a  frosty  morning,  and  are  all 
the  warmer  afterwards ;  your  limbs  are  weary 
with  wholesome  work,  and  lie  down  in  the  pleas- 
anter  rest ;  you  are  tried  for  a  little  while  by 
having  to  wait  for  some  promised  good,  and  it  is 
all  the  sweeter  when  it  comes.  But  you  cannot 
carry  the  trial  past  a  certain  point.  Let  the  cold 
fasten  on  your  hand  in  an  extreme  degree,  and 
your  fingers  will  molder  from  their  sockets. 
Fatigue  yourself,  but  once,  to  utter  exhaustion, 
and  to  the  end  of  life  you  shall  not  recover  the 
former  vigor  of  your  frame.  Let  heart-sickness 
pass  beyond  a  certain  bitter  point,  and  the  heart 
loses  its  life  forever. 

Now,  the  very  definition  of  evil  is  in  this  irre- 
mediableness.  It  means  sorrow,  or  sin,  which 
ends  in  death  ;  and  assuredly,  as  far  as  we  know, 
or  can  conceive,  there  are  many  conditions  both 
of  pain  and  sin  which  cannot  but  so  end.  Of 
course  we  are  ignorant  and  blind  creatures,  and 
we  cannot  know  what  seeds  of  good  may  be  in 
present  suffering,  or  present  crime ;  but  with 
what  we  cannot  know  we  are  not  concerned.  It 
is  conceivable  that  murderers  and  liars  may  in 
some  distant  world  be  exalted  into  a  higher 
humanity  than  they  could  have  reached  without 
homicide  or  falsehood ;  but  the  contingency  is 
not  one  by  which  our  actions  should  be  guided. 
There  is,  indeed,  a  better  hope  that  the  beggar, 
who  lies  at  our  gates  in  misery,  may,  within  gates 
of  pearl,  be  comforted ;  but  the  Master,  whose 


PREFACE 


words  are  our  only  authority  for  thinking  so, 
never  Himself  inflicted  disease  as  a  blessing,  nor 
sent  away  the  hungry  unfed,  or  the  wounded 
unhealed. 

Believe  me  then,  the  only  right  principle  of 
action  here  is  to  consider  good  and  evil  as  de- 
fined by  our  natural  sense  of  both  ;  and  to  strive 
to  promote  the  one,  and  to  conquer  the  other, 
with  as  hearty  endeavor  as  if  there  were,  indeed, 
no  other  world  than  this.  Above  all,  get  quit  of 
the  absurd  idea  that  Heaven  will  interfere  to  cor- 
rect great  errors,  while  allowing  its  laws  to  take 
their  course  in  punishing  small  ones.  If  you  pre- 
pare a  dish  of  food  carelessly,  you  do  not  expect 
Providence  to  make  it  palatable ;  neither  if, 
through  years  of  folly,  you  misguide  your  own 
life,  need  you  expect  Divine  interference  to  bring 
round  everything  at  last  for  the  best.  I  tell  you, 
positively,  the  world  is  not  so  constituted :  the 
consequences  of  great  mistakes  are  just  as  sure 
as  those  of  small  ones,  and  the  happiness  of  your 
whole  life,  and  of  all  the  lives  over  which  you 
have  power,  depends  as  literally  on  your  own 
common  sense  and  discretion  as  the  excellence 
and  order  of  the  feast  of  a  day. 

Think  carefully  and  bravely  over  these  things, 
and  you  will  find  them  true ;  having  found  them 
so,  think  also  carefully  over  your  own  position  in 
life.  I  assume  that  you  belong  to  the  middle  or 
upper  classes,  and  that  you  would  shrink  from 
descending  into  a  lower  sphere.  You  may  fancy 
you  would  not :  nay,  if  you  are  very  good,  strong- 
hearted,  and  romantic,  perhaps  you  really  would 
not ;  but  it  is  not  wrong  that  you  should.  You 
have,  then,  I  suppose,  good  food,  pretty  rooms  to 
live  in,  pretty  dresses  to  wear,  power  of  obtain- 
ing every  rational  and  wholesome  pleasure ;  you 
xviii 


PREFACE 


are,  moreover,  probably  gentle  and  grateful,  and 
in  the  habit  of  every  day  thanking  God  for  these 
things.  But  why  do  you  thank  Him  ?  Is  it  be- 
cause, in  these  matters,  as  well  as  in  your  religious 
knowledge,  you  think  He  has  made  a  favorite 
of  you  ?  Is  the  essential  meaning  of  your  thanks- 
giving, "Lord,  I  thank  Thee  that  I  am  not  as 
other  girls  are,  not  in  that  I  fast  twice  in  the 
week  while  they  feast,  but  in  that  I  feast  seven 
times  a  week  while  they  fast,"  and  are  you  quite 
sure  this  is  a  pleasing  form  of  thanksgiving  to 
your  Heavenly  Father?  Suppose  you  saw  one 
of  your  own  true  earthly  sisters,  Lucy  or  Emily, 
cast  out  of  your  mortal  father's  house,  starving, 
helpless,  heartbroken ;  and  that  every  morning 
when  you  went  into  your  father's  room,  you  said 
to  him,  "How  good  you  are,  father,  to  give  me 
what  you  don't  give  Lucy,"  are  you  sure  that, 
whatever  anger  your  parent  might  have  just 
cause  for  against  your  sister,  he  would  be  pleased 
by  that  thanksgiving,  or  flattered  by  that  praise? 
Nay,  are  you  even  sure  that  you  are  so  much  the 
favorite? — suppose  that,  all  this  while,  he  loves 
poor  Lucy  just  as  well  as  you,  and  is  only  trying 
you  through  her  pain,  and  perhaps  not  angry 
with  her  in  any  wise,  but  deeply  angry  with  you, 
and  all  the  more  for  your  thanksgivings  ?  Would 
it  not  be  well  that  you  should  think,  and  earnestly 
too,  over  this  standing  of  yours  ;  and  all  the  more 
if  you  wish  to  believe  that  text,  which  clergymen 
so  much  dislike  preaching  on,  "  How  hardly  shall 
they  that  have  riches  enter  into  the  Kingdom  of 
God  "  ?  You  do  not  believe  it  now,  or  you  would 
be  less  complacent  in  your  state  ;  and  you  cannot 
believe  it  at  all,  until  you  know  that  the  King- 
dom of  God  means,  "not  meat  and  drink,  but 
justice,  peace,  and  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost,"  nor 


PREFACE 


until  you  know  also  that  such  joy  is  not  by  any 
means,  necessarily,  in  going  to  church,  or  in 
singing  hymns ;  but  may  be  joy  in  a  dance,  or 
joy  in  a  jest,  or  joy  in  anything  you  have  deserved 
to  possess,  or  that  you  are  willing  to  give ;  but  joy 
in  nothing  that  separates  you,  as  by  any  strange 
favor,  from  your  fellow-creatures,  that  exalts  you 
through  their  degradation  —  exempts  you  from 
their  toil  —  or  indulges  you  in  time  of  their  dis- 
tress. 

Think,  then,  and  some  day,  I  believe,  you  will 
feel  also, —  no  morbid  passion  of  pity  such  as 
would  turn  you  into  a  black  Sister  of  Charity, 
but  the  steady  fire  of  perpetual  kindness  which 
will  make  you  a  bright  one.  I  speak  in  no  dis- 
paragement of  them  ;  I  know  well  how  good  the 
Sisters  of  Charity  are,  and  how  much  we  owe  to 
them ;  but  all  these  professional  pieties  (except 
so  far  as  distinction  or  association  may  be  neces- 
sary for  effectiveness  of  work)  are  in  their  spirit 
wrong,  and  in  practice  merely  plaster  the  sores 
of  disease  that  ought  never  to  have  been  permit- 
ted to  exist ;  encouraging  at  the  same  time  the 
herd  of  less  excellent  women  in  frivolity,  by  lead- 
ing them  to  think  that  they  must  either  be  good 
up  to  the  black  standard,  or  cannot  be  good  for 
anything.  Wear  a  costume,  by  all  means,  if  you 
like ;  but  let  it  be  a  cheerful  and  becoming  one ; 
and  be  in  your  heart  a  Sister  of  Charity  always, 
without  either  veiled  or  voluble  declaration  of  it. 

As  I  pause,  before  ending  my  preface — think- 
ing of  one  or  two  more  points  that  are  difficult  to 
write  of — I  find  a  letter  in  "The  Times,"  from  a 
French  lady,  which  says  all  I  want  so  beautifully 
that  I  will  print  it  just  as  it  stands : 

SIB  :  It  is  often  said  that  one  example  is  worth  many  ser- 
mons.   Shall  I  be  judged  presumptuous  if  I  point  out  one 
xx 


PREFACE 


which  seems  to  me  so  striking  just  now  that,  however  pain- 
ful, I  cannot  help  dwelling  upon  it? 

It  is  the  share,  the  sad  and  large  share,  that  French  society 
and  its  recent  habits  of  luxury,  of  expenses,  of  dress,  of  in- 
dulgence in  every  kind  of  extravagant  dissipation,  has  to  lay 
to  its  own  door  in  its  actual  crisis  of  ruin,  misery,  and  humili- 
ation. If  our  menageres  can  be  cited  as  an  example  to  Eng- 
lish housewives,  so,  alas !  can  other  classes  of  our  society  be 
set  up  as  an  example— not  to  be  followed. 

Bitter  must  be  the  feelings  of  many  a  Frenchwoman  whose 
days  of  luxury  and  expensive  habits  are  at  an  end,  and  whose 
bills  of  bygone  splendor  lie  with  a  heavy  weight  on  her  con- 
science, if  not  on  her  purse ! 

With  us  the  evil  has  spread  high  and  low.  Everywhere 
have  the  examples  given  by  the  highest  ladies  in  the  land 
been  followed  but  too  successfully. 

Every  year  did  dress  become  more  extravagant,  entertain- 
ments more  costly,  expenses  of  every  kind  more  considerable- 
Lower  and  lower  became  the  tone  of  society,  its  good  breed- 
ing, its  delicacy.  More  and  more  were  monde  and  demirtnonde 
associated  in  newspaper  accounts  of  fashionable  doings,  in 
scandalous  gossip,  on  race-courses,  in  premieres  representa- 
tions, in  imitation  of  each  other's  costumes,  mobiliers,  and 
slang. 

Living  beyond  one's  means  became  habitual  —  almost  ne- 
cessary—  for  every  one  to  keep  up  with,  if  not  to  go  beyond, 
every  one  else. 

What  the  result  of  all  this  has  been  we  now  see  in  the 
wreck  of  our  prosperity,  in  the  downfall  of  all  that  seemed 
brightest  and  highest. 

Deeply  and  fearfully  impressed  by  what  my  own  country 
has  incurred  and  is  suffering,  I  cannot  help  feeling  sorrowful 
when  I  see  in  England  signs  of  our  besetting  sins  appearing 
also.  Paint  and  chignons,  slang  and  vaudevilles,  knowing 
"  Anonymas"  by  name  and  reading  doubtfully  moral  novels, 
are  in  themselves  small  offenses,  although  not  many  years 
ago  they  would  have  appeared  very  heinous  ones,  yet  they 
are  quick  and  tempting  conveyances  on  a  very  dangerous 
highroad. 

I  would  that  all  Englishwomen  knew  how  they  are  looked 
np  to  from  abroad  —  what  a  high  opinion,  what  honor  and 
reverence  we  foreigners  have  for  their  principles,  their  truth- 
fulness, the  fresh  and  pure  innocence  of  their  daughters,  the 
healthy  youthfulness  of  their  lovely  children. 

May  I  illustrate  this  by  a  short  example  which  happened 
very  near  me  ?  During  the  days  of  the  tmeutes  of  1848,  all  the 
houses  in  Paris  were  being  searched  for  firearms  by  the  mob. 


PREFACE 


The  one  I  was  living  in  contained  none,  as  the  master  of  the 
house  repeatedly  assured  the  furious  and  incredulous  Repub- 
licans. They  were  going  to  lay  violent  hands  on  him  when 
his  wife,  an  English  lady,  hearing  the  loud  discussion,  came 
bravely  forward  and  assured  them  that  no  arms  were  con- 
cealed. "  Vous  Stes  anglaise,  nous  vous  croyons ;  les  anglaises 
disent  toujours  la  ve'rite',"  was  the  immediate  answer,  and 
the  rioters  quietly  left. 

Now,  sir,  shall  I  be  accused  of  unjustified  criticism  if,  lov- 
ing and  admiring  your  country,  as  these  lines  will  prove, 
certain  new  features  strike  me  as  painful  discrepancies  in 
English  life  ? 

Far  be  it  from  me  to  preach  the  contempt  of  all  that  can 
make  life  lovable  and  wholesomely  pleasant.  I  love  nothing 
better  than  to  see  a  woman  nice,  neat,  elegant,  looking  her 
best  in  the  prettiest  dress  that  her  taste  and  purse  can  afford, 
or  your  bright,  fresh  young  girls  fearlessly  and  perfectly 
sitting  their  horses,  or  adorning  their  houses  as  pretty  [sic; 
it  is  not  quite  grammar,  but  it  is  better  than  if  it  were]  as 
care,  trouble,  and  refinement  can  make  them. 

It  is  the  degree  beyond  that  which  to  us  has  proved  so  fatal, 
and  that  I  would  our  example  could  warn  you  from  as  a 
small  repayment  for  your  hospitality  and  friendliness  to  us 
in  our  days  of  trouble. 

May  Englishwomen  accept  this  in  a  kindly  spirit  as  a  New- 
Year's  wish  from  A  FRENCH  LADY. 

Dec.  29. 

That,  then,  is  the  substance  of  what  I  would 
fain  say  convincingly,  if  it  might  be,  to  my 
girl  friends ;  at  all  events  with  certainty  in  my 
own  mind  that  I  was  thus  far  a  safe  guide  to 
them. 

For  other  and  older  readers  it  is  needful  I 
should  write  a  few  words  more,  respecting  what 
opportunity  I  have  had  to  judge,  or  right  I  have 
to  speak,  of  such  things ;  for,  indeed,  too  much 
of  what  I  have  said  about  women  has  been  said  in 
faith  only.  A  wise  and  lovely  English  lady  told 
me,  when  "Sesame  and  Lilies"  first  appeared, 
that  she  was  sure  the  "  Sesame  "  would  be  useful, 
but  that  in  the  "Lilies"  I  had  been  writing  of 
what  I  knew  nothing  about.  Which  was  in  a 
oB 


PREFACE 


measure  too  true,  and  also  that  it  is  more  partial 
than  my  writings  are  usually  :  for  as  Ellesmere 
spoke  his  speech  on  the  —  -  intervention,  not, 
indeed,  otherwise  than  he  felt,  but  yet  altogether 
for  the  sake  of  Gretchen,  so  I  wrote  the  "  Lilies" 
to  please  one  girl  ;  and  were  it  not  for  what  I 
remember  of  her,  and  of  few  besides,  should 
now  perhaps  recast  some  of  the  sentences  in  the 
"Lilies"  in  a  very  different  tone:  for  as  years 
have  gone  by,  it  has  chanced  to  me,  untowardly 
in  some  respects,  fortunately  in  others  (because 
it  enables  me  to  read  history  more  clearly),  to 
see  the  utmost  evil  that  is  in  women,  while  I  have 
had  but  to  believe  the  utmost  good.  The  best 
women  are  indeed  necessarily  the  most  difficult 
to  know  ;  they  are  recognized  chiefly  in  the  hap- 
piness of  their  husbands  and  the  nobleness  of 
their  children  ;  they  are  only  to  be  divined,  not 
discerned,  by  the  stranger  ;  and,  sometimes,  seem 
almost  helpless  except  in  their  homes  ;  yet  with- 
out the  help  of  one  of  them,1  to  whom  this  book 
is  dedicated,  the  day  would  probably  have  come 
before  now  when  I  should  have  written  and 
thought  no  more. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  fashion  of  the  time 
renders  whatever  is  forward,  coarse,  or  senseless, 
in  feminine  nature,  too  palpable  to  all  men  :  — 
the  weak  picturesqueness  of  my  earlier  writings 
brought  me  acquainted  with  much  of  their  emp- 
tiest enthusiasm  ;  and  the  chances  of  later  life 
gave  me  opportunities  of  watching  women  in 
states  of  degradation  and  vindictiveness  which 
opened  to  me  the  gloomiest  secrets  of  Greek  and 
Syrian  tragedy.  I  have  seen  them  betray  their 
household  charities  to  lust,  their  pledged  love  to 
devotion  ;  I  have  seen  mothers  dutiful  to  their 


xxiii 


PREFACE 


children,  as  Medea ;  and  children  dutiful  to  their 
parents,  as  the  daughter  of  Herodias :  but  my 
trust  is  still  unmoved  in  the  preciousness  of  the 
natures  that  are  so  fatal  in  their  error,  and  I 
leave  the  words  of  the  "Lilies"  unchanged  ;  be- 
lieving, yet,  that  no  man  ever  lived  a  right  life 
who  had  not  been  chastened  by  a  woman's  love, 
strengthened  by  her  courage,  and  guided  by  her 
discretion. 

What  I  might  myself  have  been,  so  helped,  I 
rarely  indulge  in  the  idleness  of  thinking ;  but 
what  I  am,  since  I  take  on  me  the  function  of  a 
teacher,  it  is  well  that  the  reader  should  know, 
as  far  as  I  can  tell  him. 

Not  an  unjust  person  ;  not  an  unkind  one ;  not 
a  false  one ;  a  lover  of  order,  labor,  and  peace. 
That,  it  seems  to  me,  is  enough  to  give  me  right 
to  say  all  I  care  to  say  on  ethical  subjects  ;  more, 
I  could  only  tell  definitely  through  details  of 
autobiography  such  as  none  but  prosperous  and 
(in  the  simple  sense  of  the  word)  faultless  lives 
could  justify ; —  and  mine  has  been  neither.  Yet, 
if  any  one,  skilled  in  reading  the  torn  manu- 
scripts of  the  human  soul,  cares  for  more  intimate 
knowledge  of  me,  he  may  have  it  by  knowing 
with  what  persons  in  past  history  I  have  most 
sympathy. 

I  will  name  three. 

In  all  that  is  strongest  and  deepest  in  me, 
that  fits  me  for  my  work,  and  gives  light  or 
shadow  to  my  being,  I  have  sympathy  with 
Guido  Guinicelli. 

In  my  constant  natural  temper,  and  thoughts 
of  things  and  of  people,  with  Marmontel. 

In  my  enforced  and  accidental  temper,  and 
thoughts  of  things  and  of  people,  with  Dean 
Swift. 

zxlv 


PREFACE 


Any  one  who  can  understand  the  natures  of 
those  three  men  can  understand  mine  ;  and  hav- 
ing said  so  much,  I  am  content  to  leave  both  life 
and  work  to  be  remembered  or  forgotten,  as  their 
uses  may  deserve. 

DENMARK  HILL, 
1st  January,  1871. 


LECTURE   I 

SESAME 
OF  KINGS'   TREASURIES 


LECTURE 
I 

SESAME:   OF  KINGS'   TREASURIES 


You  shall  each  have  a  cake  of  sesame,— 
and  ten  pound. 

LUCIAN,  The  Fisherman. 


M 


"Y  first  duty  this  evening  is  to  ask 
your  pardon  for  the  ambiguity  of 
title  under  which  the  subject  of 
lecture  has  been  announced:  for  indeed  I  am 
not  going  to  talk  of  kings,  known  as  reg- 
nant, nor  of  treasuries,  understood  to  con- 
tain wealth;  but  of  quite  another  order  of 
royalty,  and  another  material  of  riches, 
than  those  usually  acknowledged.  I  had 
even  intended  to  ask  your  attention  for  a 
little  while  on  trust,  and  (as  sometimes  one 
contrives,  in  taking  a  friend  to  see  a  favor- 
ite piece  of  scenery)  to  hide  what  I  wanted 
most  to  show,  with  such  imperfect  cunning 
as  I  might,  until  we  unexpectedly  reached 
the  best  point  of  view  by  winding  paths. 
But— and  as  also  I  have  heard  it  said,  by 
men  practised  in  public  address,  that  hear- 
ers are  never  so  much  fatigued  as  by  the 
endeavor  to  follow  a  speaker  who  gives 
3 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


them  no  clue  to  his  purpose— I  will  take 
the  slight  mask  off  at  once,  and  tell  you 
plainly  that  I  want  to  speak  to  you  about 
the  treasures  hidden  in  books;  and  about 
the  way  we  find  them,  and  the  way  we  lose 
them.  A  grave  subject,  you  will  say;  and  a 
wide  one!  Yes;  so  wide  that  I  shall  make 
no  effort  to  touch  the  compass  of  it.  I  will 
try  only  to  bring  before  you  a  few  simple 
thoughts  about  reading,  which  press  them- 
selves upon  me  every  day  more  deeply,  as 
I  watch  the  course  of  the  public  mind  with 
respect  to  our  daily  enlarging  means  of  edu- 
cation; and  the  answeringly  wider  spreading 
on  the  levels,  of  the  irrigation  of  literature. 
It  happens  that  I  have  practically  some 
connection  with  schools  for  different  classes 
of  youth;  and  I  receive  many  letters  from 
parents  respecting  the  education  of  their 
children.  In  the  mass  of  these  letters  I  am 
always  struck  by  the  precedence  which  the 
idea  of  a  "position  in  life"  takes  above  all 
other  thoughts  in  the  parents'— more  es- 
pecially in  the  mothers'— minds.  "The 
education  befitting  such  and  such  a  station 
in  life"— this  is  the  phrase,  this  the  ob- 
ject, always.  They  never  seek,  as  far  as  I 
can  make  out,  an  education  good  in  itself; 
even  the  conception  of  abstract  Tightness 
in  training  rarely  seems  reached  by  the 
4 


OF   KINGS'  TREASURIES 


writers.  But,  an  education  "which  shall 
keep  a  good  coat  on  my  son's  back;— which 
shall  enable  him  to  ring  with  confidence  the 
visitors'  bell  at  double-belled  doors;  which 
shall  result  ultimately  in  establishment  of 
a  double-belled  door  to  his  own  house;— in 
a  word,  which  shall  lead  to  advancement  in 
life;— this  we  pray  for  on  bent  knees— and 
this  is  all  we  pray  for."  It  never  seems  to 
occur  to  the  parents  that  there  may  be  an 
education  which,  in  itself,  is  advancement 
in  Life;— that  any  other  than  that  may 
perhaps  be  advancement  in  Death;  and  that 
this  essential  education  might  be  more 
easily  got,  or  given,  than  they  fancy,  if  they 
set  about  it  in-  the  right  way;  while  it  is  for 
no  price,  and  by  no  favor,  to  be  got,  if  they 
set  about  it  in  the  wrong. 

Indeed,  among  the  ideas  most  prevalent 
and  effective  in  the  mind  of  this  busiest  of 
countries,  I  suppose  the  first— at  least  that 
which  is  confessed  with  the  greatest  frank- 
ness, and  put  forward  as  the  fittest  stimu- 
lus to  youthful  exertion— is  this  of  "Ad- 
vancement in  life."  May  I  ask  you  to 
consider  with  me  what  this  idea  practi- 
cally includes,  and  what  it  should  include? 

Practically,  then,  at  present,  "advance- 
ment in  life  "  means,  becoming  conspicuous 
in  life;  obtaining  a  position  which  shall  be 
5 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


acknowledged  by  others  to  be  respectable 
or  honorable.  We  do  not  understand  by 
this  advancement,  in  general,  the  mere 
making  of  money,  but  the  being  known  to 
have  made  it;  not  the  accomplishment  of 
any  great  aim,  but  the  being  seen  to  have 
accomplished  it.  In  a  word,  we  mean  the 
gratification  of  our  thirst  for  applause. 
That  thirst,  if  the  last  infirmity  of  noble 
minds,  is  also  the  first  infirmity  of  weak 
ones;  and,  on  the  whole,  the  strongest  im- 
pulsive influence  of  average  humanity:  the 
greatest  efforts  of  the  race  have  always  been 
traceable  to  the  love  of  praise,  as  its  great- 
est catastrophes  to  the  love  of  pleasure. 

I  am  not  about  to  attack  or  defend  this 
impulse.  I  want  you  only  to  feel  how  it 
lies  at  the  root  of  effort;  especially  of  all 
modern  effort.  It  is  the  gratification  of 
vanity  which  is,  with  us,  the  stimulus  of 
toil  and  balm  of  repose;  so  closely  does  it 
touch  the  very  springs  of  life  that  the 
wounding  of  our  vanity  is  always  spoken  of 
(and  truly)  as  in  its  measure  mortal;  we 
call  it  "mortification,"  using  the  same  ex- 
pression which  we  should  apply  to  a  gan- 
grenous and  incurable  bodily  hurt.  And 
although  a  few  of  us  may  be  physicians 
enough  to  recognize  the  various  effect  of 
this  passion  upon  health  and  energy,  I  be- 
6 


OF  KINGS'  TREASURIES 

lieve  most  honest  men  know,  and  would  at 
once  acknowledge,  its  leading  power  with 
them  as  a  motive.  The  seaman  does  not 
commonly  desire  to  he  made  captain  only 
because  he  knows  he  can  manage  the  ship 
better  than  any  other  sailor  on  board.  He 
wants  to  be  made  captain  that  he  may  be 
called  captain.  The  clergyman  does  not 
usually  want  to  be  made  a  bishop  only 
because  he  believes  that  no  other  hand  can, 
as  firmly  as  his,  direct  the  diocese  through 
its  difficulties.  He  wants  to  be  made  bishop 
primarily  that  he  may  be  called  "  My  Lord." 
And  a  prince  does  not  usually  desire  to  en- 
large, or  a  subject  to  gain,  a  kingdom, 
because  he  believes  no  one  else  can  as  well 
serve  the  State,  upon  its  throne;  but, 
briefly,  because  he  wishes  to  be  addressed 
as  "Your  Majesty,"  by  as  many  lips  as  may 
be  brought  to  such  utterance. 

This,  then,  being  the  main  idea  of  "  ad- 
vancement in  life,"  the  force  of  it  applies, 
for  all  of  us,  according  to  our  station,  par- 
ticularly to  that  secondary  result  of  such 
advancement  which  we  call  "getting  into 
good  society."  We  want  to  get  into  good 
society,  not  that  we  may  have  it,  but  that 
we  may  be  seen  in  it;  and  our  notion  of  its 
goodness  depends  primarily  on  its  conspicu- 
ousness. 

7 


SESAME  AND  LILIES 


Will  you  pardon  me  if  I  pause  for  a  mo- 
ment to  put  what  I  fear  you  may  think  an 
impertinent  question?  I  never  can  go  on 
with  an  address  unless  I  feel,  or  know,  that 
my  audience  are  either  with  me  or  against 
me:  I  do  not  much  care  which,  in  begin- 
ning; but  I  must  know  where  they  are;  and 
I  would  fain  find  out,  at  this  instant,  whether 
you  think  I  am  putting  the  motives  of  popu- 
lar action  too  low.  I  am  resolved,  to-night, 
to  state  them  low  enough  to  be  admitted  as 
probable;  for  whenever,  in  my  writings  on 
Political  Economy,  I  assume  that  a  little 
honesty,  or  generosity,— or  what  used  to  be 
called  "virtue,"— may  be  calculated  upon 
as  a  human  motive  of  action,  people  always 
answer  me,  saying,  "You  must  not  calcu- 
late on  that:  that  is  not  in  human  nature. 
You  must  not  assume  anything  to  be  com- 
mon to  men  but  acquisitiveness  and  jeal- 
ousy; no  other  feeling  ever  has  influence  on 
them,  except  accidentally,  and  in  matters 
out  of  the  way  of  business."  I  begin,  ac- 
cordingly, to-night  low  in  the  scale  of 
motives;  but  I  must  know  if  you  think  me 
right  in  doing  so.  Therefore,  let  me  ask 
those  who  admit  the  love  of  praise  to  be 
usually  the  strongest  motive  in  men's  minds 
in  seeking  advancement,  and  the  honest 
desire  of  doing  any  kind  of  duty  to  be  an 
8 


OF   KINGS'  TREASURIES 

entirely  secondary  one,  to  hold  up  their 
hands.  (About  a  dozen  hands  held  up— the 
audience,  partly,  not  being  sure  the  lecturer 
is  serious,  and,  partly,  shy  of  expressing 
opinion.)  I  am  quite  serious— I  really  do 
want  to  know  what  you  think;  however, 
I  can  judge  by  putting  the  reverse  question. 
Will  those  who  think  that  duty  is  generally 
the  first,  and  love  of  praise  the  second, 
motive,  hold  up  their  hands?  (One  hand 
reported  to  have  been  held  up  behind  the 
lecturer.)  Very  good:  I  see  you  are  with 
me,  and  that  you  think  I  have  not  begun 
too  near  the  ground.  Now,  without  teasing 
you  by  putting  farther  question,  I  venture 
to  assume  that  you  will  admit  duty  as  at 
least  a  secondary  or  tertiary  motive.  You 
think  that  the  desire  of  doing  something 
useful,  or  obtaining  some  real  good,  is  in- 
deed an  existent  collateral  idea,  though  a 
secondary  one,  in  most  men's  desire  of 
advancement.  You  will  grant  that  mod- 
erately honest  men  desire  place  and  office, 
at  least  in  some  measure  for  the  sake  of 
beneficent  power;  and  would  wish  to  asso- 
ciate rather  with  sensible  and  well-informed 
persons  than  with  fools  and  ignorant  per- 
sons, whether  they  are  seen  in  the  company 
of  the  sensible  ones  or  not.  And  finally, 
without  being  troubled  by  repetition  of  any 
9 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


common  truisms  about  the  preciousness  of 
friends,  and  the  influence  of  companions, 
you  will  admit,  doubtless,  that  according  to 
the  sincerity  of  our  desire  that  our  friends 
may  be  true,  and  our  companions  wise,— 
and  in  proportion  to  the  earnestness  and 
discretion  with  which  we  choose  both,— 
will  be  the  general  chances  of  our  happi- 
ness and  usefulness. 

But,  granting  that  we  had  both  the  will 
and  the  sense  to  choose  our  friends  well, 
how  few  of  us  have  the  power!  or,  at  least, 
how  limited,  for  most,  is  the  sphere  of 
choice!  Nearly  all  our  associations  are 
determined  by  chance  or  necessity,  and 
restricted  within  a  narrow  circle.  We  can- 
not know  whom  we  would;  and  those  whom 
we  know,  we  cannot  have  at  our  side  when 
we  most  need  them.  All  the  higher  circles 
of  human  intelligence  are,  to  those  beneath, 
only  momentarily  and  partially  open.  We 
may,  by  good  fortune,  obtain  a  glimpse  of  a 
great  poet,  and  hear  the  sound  of  his  voice; 
or  put  a  question  to  a  man  of  science,  and 
be  answered  good-humoredly.  We  may 
intrude  ten  minutes'  talk  on  a  cabinet  min- 
ister, answered  probably  with  words  worse 
than  silence,  being  deceptive;  or  snatch, 
once  or  twice  in  our  lives,  the  privilege  of 
throwing  a  bouquet  in  the  path  of  a  prin- 
10 


OF   KINGS'   TREASURIES 

cess,  or  arresting  the  kind  glance  of  a 
queen.  And  yet  these  momentary  chances 
we  covet;  and  spend  our  years  and  passions 
and  powers  in  pursuit  of  little  more  than 
these;  while,  meantime,  there  is  a  society 
continually  open  to  us,  of  people  who  will  talk 
to  us  as  long  as  we  like,  whatever  our  rank 
or  occupation;— talk  to  us  in  the  best  words 
they  can  choose,  and  of  the  things  nearest 
their  hearts.  And  this  society,  because  it 
is  so  numerous  and  so  gentle,  and  can  be 
kept  waiting  round  us  all  day  long,— kings 
and  statesmen  lingering  patiently,  not  to 
grant  audience,  but  to  gain  it!— in  those 
plainly  furnished  and  narrow  anterooms, 
our  bookcase  shelves,— we  make  no  account 
of  that  company,— perhaps  never  listen  to 
a  word  they  would  say,  all  day  long! 

You  may  tell  me,  perhaps,  or  think  within 
yourselves,  that  the  apathy  with  which  we 
regard  this  company  of  the  noble,  who  are 
praying  us  to  listen  to  them;  and  the  pas- 
sion with  which  we  pursue  the  company, 
probably  of  the  ignoble,  who  despise  us,  or 
who  have  nothing  to  teach  us,  are  grounded 
in  this, — that  we  can  see  the  faces  of  the 
living  men,  and  it  is  themselves,  and  not 
their  sayings,  with  which  we  desire  to  be- 
come familiar.  But  it  is  not  so.  Suppose 
you  never  were  to  see  their  faces;— suppose 
11 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 


you  could  be  put  behind  a  screen  in  the 
statesman's  cabinet,  or  the  prince's  cham- 
ber, would  you  not  be  glad  to  listen  to  their 
words,  though  you  were  forbidden  to  ad- 
vance beyond  the  screen?  And  when  the 
screen  is  only  a  little  less,  folded  in  two  in- 
stead of  four,  and  you  can  be  hidden  behind 
the  cover  of  the  two  boards  that  bind  a 
book,  and  listen  all  day  long,  not  to  the 
casual  talk,  but  to  the  studied,  determined, 
chosen  addresses  of  the  wisest  of  men;— 
this  station  of  audience,  and  honorable  privy 
council,  you  despise! 

But  perhaps  you  will  say  that  it  is  be- 
cause the  living  people  talk  of  things  that 
are  passing,  and  are  of  immediate  interest 
to  you,  that  you  desire  to  hear  them.  Nay; 
that  cannot  be  so,  for  the  living  people  will 
themselves  tell  you  about  passing  matters 
much  better  in  their  writings  than  in  their 
careless  talk.  Yet  I  admit  that  this  motive 
does  influence  you,  so  far  as  you  prefer 
those  rapid  and  ephemeral  writings  to  slow 
and  enduring  writings— books,  properly  so 
called.  For  all  books  are  divisible  into  two 
classes,  the  books  of  the  hour,  and  the 
books  of  all  time.  Mark  this  distinction— 
it  is  not  one  of  quality  only.  It  is  not 
merely  the  bad  book  that  does  not  last,  and 
the  good  one  that  does.  It  is  a  distinction 
12 


OP   KINGS'   TREASURIES 

of  species.  There  are  good  books  for  the 
hour,  and  good  ones  for  all  time;  bad  books 
for  the  hour,  and  bad  ones  for  all  time.  I 
must  define  the  two  kinds  before  I  go  far- 
ther. 

The  good  book  of  the  hour,  then,— I  do 
not  speak  of  the  bad  ones,— is  simply  the 
useful  or  pleasant  talk  of  some  person 
whom  you  cannot  otherwise  converse  with, 
printed  for  you.  Very  useful  often,  telling 
you  what  you  need  to  know;  very  pleasant 
often,  as  a  sensible  friend's  present  talk 
would  be.  These  bright  accounts  of  travels; 
good-humored  and  witty  discussions  of 
question;  lively  or  pathetic  story-telling  in 
the  form  of  novel;  firm  fact-telling,  by  the 
real  agents  concerned  in  the  events  of  pass- 
ing history;— all  these  books  of  the  hour, 
multiplying  among  us  as  education  becomes 
more  general,  are  a  peculiar  possession  of 
the  present  age.  We  ought  to  be  entirely 
thankful  for  them,  and  entirely  ashamed  of 
ourselves  if  we  make  no  good  use  of  them. 
But  we  make  the  worst  possible  use  if  we 
allow  them  to  usurp  the  place  of  true  books; 
for,  strictly  speaking,  they  are  not  books  at 
all,  but  merely  letters  or  newspapers  in 
good  print.  Our  friend's  letter  may  be  de- 
lightful, or  necessary,  to-day;  whether  worth 
keeping  or  not,  is  to  be  considered.  The 
13 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


newspaper  may  be  entirely  proper  at  break- 
fast-time, but  assuredly  it  is  not  reading 
for  all  day.  So,  though  bound  up  in  a  vol- 
ume, the  long  letter  which  gives  you  so 
pleasant  an  account  of  the  inns,  and  roads, 
and  weather,  last  year  at  such  a  place,  or 
which  tells  you  that  amusing  story,  or  gives 
you  the  real  circumstances  of  such  and 
such  events,  however  valuable  for  occa- 
sional reference,  may  not  be,  in  the  real 
sense  of  the  word,  a  "book"  at  all,  nor,  in 
the  real  sense,  to  be  "read."  A  book  is 
essentially  not  a  talking  thing,  but  a  written 
thing;  and  written,  not  with  a  view  of  mere 
communication,  but  of  permanence.  The 
book  of  talk  is  printed  only  because  its 
author  cannot  speak  to  thousands  of  people 
at  once;  if  he  could,  he  would— the  volume 
is  mere  multiplication  of  his  voice.  You 
cannot  talk  to  your  friend  in  India;  if  you 
could,  you  would;  you  write  instead:  that  is 
mere  conveyance  of  voice.  But  a  book  is 
written,  not  to  multiply  the  voice  merely, 
not  to  carry  it  merely,  but  to  perpetuate  it. 
The  author  has  something  to  say  which  he 
perceives  to  be  true  and  useful,  or  helpfully 
beautiful.  So  far  as  he  knows,  no  one  has 
yet  said  it;  so  far  as  he  knows,  no  one  else 
can  say  it.  He  is  bound  to  say  it,  clearly 
and  melodiously  if  he  may;  clearly  at  all 
14 


OF   KINGS'   TREASURIES 

events.  In  the  sum  of  his  life  he  finds  this 
to  be  the  thing,  or  group  of  things,  mani- 
fest to  him;— this,  the  piece  of  true  know- 
ledge, or  sight,  which  his  share  of  sunshine 
and  earth  has  permitted  him  to  seize.  He 
would  fain  set  it  down  forever;  engrave  it 
on  rock,  if  he  could;  saying,  "This  is  the 
best  of  me;  for  the  rest,  I  ate  and  drank 
and  slept,  loved  and  hated,  like  another;  my 
life  was  as  the  vapor,  and  is  not;  but  this  I 
saw  and  knew:  this,  if  anything  of  mine, 
is  worth  your  memory."  That  is  his  "writ- 
ing"; it  is,  in  his  small  human  way,  and 
with  whatever  degree  of  true  inspiration  is 
in  him,  his  inscription,  or  scripture.  That 
is  a  "Book." 

Perhaps  you  think  no  books  were  ever  so 
written? 

But,  again,  I  ask  you,  do  you  at  all  believe 
in  honesty,  or  at  all  in  kindness,  or  do  you 
think  there  is  never  any  honesty  or  benevo- 
lence in  wise  people?  None  of  us,  I  hope, 
are  so  unhappy  as  to  think  that.  Well, 
whatever  bit  of  a  wise  man's  work  is  hon- 
estly and  benevolently  done,  that  bit  is  his 
book  or  his  piece  of  art.1  It  is  mixed  always 
with  evil  fragments— ill-done,  redundant, 
affected  work.  But  if  you  read  rightly,  you 

1  Note  this  sentence  carefully,  and  compare  the  "  Queen  of 
the  Air,"  \  106. 

15 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


will  easily  discover  the  true  bits,  and  those 
are  the  book. 

Now  books  of  this  kind  have  been  written 
in  all  ages  by  their  greatest  men— by  great 
readers,  great  statesmen,  and  great  think- 
ers. These  are  all  at  your  choice;  and  Life 
is  short.  You  have  heard  as  much  before; 
—yet  have  you  measured  and  mapped  out 
this  short  life  and  its  possibilities?  Do 
you  know,  if  you  read  this,  that  you  cannot 
read  that— that  what  you  lose  to-day  you 
cannot  gain  to-morrow?  Will  you  go  and 
gossip  with  your  housemaid,  or  your  stable- 
boy,  when  you  may  talk  with  queens  and 
kings;  or  flatter  yourself  that  it  is  with  any 
worthy  consciousness  of  your  own  claims  to 
respect,  that  you  jostle  with  the  hungry  and 
common  crowd  for  entree  here,  and  audience 
there,  when  all  the  while  this  eternal  court 
is  open  to  you,  with  its  society,  wide  as  the 
world,  multitudinous  as  its  days,  the  chosen 
and  the  mighty  of  every  place  and  time? 
Into  that  you  may  enter  always;  in  that  you 
may  take  fellowship  and  rank  according  to 
your  wish;  from  that,  once  entered  into  it, 
you  can  never  be  outcast  but  by  your  own 
fault:  by  your  aristocracy  of  companionship 
there,  your  own  inherent  aristocracy  will 
be  assuredly  tested,  and  the  motives  with 
which  you  strive  to  take  high  place  in  the 
16 


OF   KINGS'   TREASURIES 

society  of  the  living,  measured,  as  to  all  the 
truth  and  sincerity  that  are  in  them,  hy  the 
place  you  desire  to  take  in  this  company  of 
the  Dead. 

"The  place  you  desire,"  and  the  place  you 
fit  yourself  for,  I  must  also  say;  because, 
observe,  this  court  of  the  past  differs  from 
all  living  aristocracy  in  this:  it  is  open  to 
labor  and  to  merit,  but  to  nothing  else.  No 
wealth  will  bribe,  no  name  overawe,  no  arti- 
fice deceive,  the  guardian  of  those  Elysian 
gates.  In  the  deep  sense,  no  vile  or  vulgar 
person  ever  enters  there.  At  the  portieres 
of  that  silent  Faubourg  St.  Germain,  there 
is  but  brief  question:  "Do  you  deserve  to 
enter?  Pass.  Do  you  ask  to  be  the  com- 
panion of  nobles?  Make  yourself  noble,  and 
you  shall  be.  Do  you  long  for  the  conver- 
sation of  the  wise?  Learn  to  understand 
it,  and  you  shall  hear  it.  But  on  other 
terms?  No.  If  you  will  not  rise  to  us,  we 
cannot  stoop  to  you.  The  living  lord  may 
assume  courtesy,  the  living  philosopher  ex- 
plain his  thought  to  you  with  considerate 
pain;  but  here  we  neither  feign  nor  inter- 
pret; you  must  rise  to  the  level  of  our 
thoughts  if  you  would  be  gladdened  by 
them,  and  share  our  feelings  if  you  would 
recognize  our  presence." 

This,  then,  is  what  you  have  to  do,  and  I 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


admit  that  it  is  much.  You  must,  in  a 
word,  love  these  people,  if  you  are  to  be 
among  them.  No  ambition  is  of  any  use. 
They  scorn  your  ambition.  You  must  love 
them,  and  show  your  love  in  these  two  fol- 
lowing ways. 

(1)  First,  by  a  true  desire  to  be  taught  by 
them,  and  to  enter  into  their  thoughts.    To 
enter  into  theirs,  observe;  not  to  find  your 
own  expressed  by  them.     If  the  person  who 
wrote  the  book  is  not  wiser  than  you,  you 
need  not  read  it;  if  he  be,  he  will  think 
differently  from  you  in  many  respects. 

(2)  Very  ready  we  are  to  say  of  a  book, 
"How  good  this  is— that 's  exactly  what  I 
think!"    But  the  right  feeling  is,  "How 
strange  that  is!    I  never  thought  of  that 
before,  and  yet  I  see  it  is  true;  or  if  I  do  not 
now,  I  hope  I  shall  some  day."    But  whether 
thus  submissively  or  not,  at  least  be  sure 
that  you  go  to  the  author  to  get  at  his  mean- 
ing, not  to  find  yours.     Judge  it  afterwards 
if  you  think  yourself  qualified  to  do  so;  but 
ascertain  it  first.    And  be  sure,  also,  if  the 
author  is  worth  anything,  that  you  will  not 
get  at  his  meaning  all  at  once;— nay,  that 
at  his  whole  meaning  you  will  not  for  a  long 
time  arrive  in  any  wise.     Not  that  he  does 
not  say  what  he  means,  and  in  strong  words 
too;  but  he  cannot  say  it  all;  and,  what  is 

18 


OF   KINGS'   TREASURIES 

more  strange,  will  not,  but  in  a  hidden  way 
and  in  parables,  in  order  that  he  may  be  sure 
you  want  it.  I  cannot  quite  see  the  reason 
of  this,  nor  analyze  that  cruel  reticence  in 
the  breasts  of  wise  men  which  makes  them 
always  hide  their  deeper  thought.  They  do 
not  give  it  you  by  way  of  help,  but  of  re- 
ward; and  will  make  themselves  sure  that 
you  deserve  it  before  they  allow  you  to  reach 
it.  But  it  is  the  same  with  the  physical 
type  of  wisdom,  gold.  There  seems,  to  you 
and  me,  no  reason  why  the  electric  forces 
of  the  earth  should  not  carry  whatever 
there  is  of  gold  within  it  at  once  to  the 
mountain-tops,  so  that  kings  and  people 
might  know  that  all  the  gold  they  could  get 
was  there;  and  without  any  trouble  of  dig- 
ging, or  anxiety,  or  chance,  or  waste  of 
time,  cut  it  away,  and  coin  as  much  as  they 
needed.  But  Nature  does  not  manage  it  so. 
She  puts  it  in  little  fissures  in  the  earth, 
nobody  knows  where:  you  may  dig  long 
and  find  none;  you  must  dig  painfully  to  find 
any. 

And  it  is  just  the  same  with  men's  best 
wisdom.  When  you  come  to  a  good  book, 
you  must  ask  yourself,  "Am  I  inclined  to 
work  as  an  Australian  miner  would?  Are 
my  pickaxes  and  shovels  in  good  order,  and 
am  I  in  good  trim  myself,  my  sleeves  well 
19 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


up  to  the  elbow,  and  my  breath  good,  and 
my  temper?"  And,  keeping  the  figure  a 
little  longer,  even  at  cost  of  tiresomeness, 
for  it  is  a  thoroughly  useful  one,  the  metal 
you  are  in  search  of  being  the  author's  mind 
or  meaning,  his  words  are  as  the  rock  which 
you  have  to  crush  and  smelt  in  order  to  get 
at  it.  And  your  pickaxes  are  your  own  care, 
wit,  and  learning;  your  smel ting-furnace  is 
your  own  thoughtful  soul.  Do  not  hope  to 
get  at  any  good  author's  meaning  without 
those  tools  and  that  fire;  often  you  will 
need  sharpest,  finest  chiseling,  and  patient- 
est  fusing,  before  you  can  gather  one  grain 
of  the  metal. 

And,  therefore,  first  of  all,  I  tell  you  ear- 
nestly and  authoritatively  (I  know  I  am  right 
in  this),  you  must  get  into  the  habit  of  look- 
ing intensely  at  words,  and  assuring  your- 
self of  their  meaning,  syllable  by  syllable— 
nay,  letter  by  letter.  For  though  it  is  only 
by  reason  of  the  opposition  of  letters  in  the 
function  of  signs,  to  sounds  in  the  func- 
tion of  signs,  that  the  study  of  books  is 
called  "literature,"  and  that  a  man  versed 
in  it  is  called,  by  the  consent  of  nations,  a 
man  of  letters  instead  of  a  man  of  books,  or 
of  words,  you  may  yet  connect  with  that 
accidental  nomenclature  this  real  fact: 
that  you  might  read  all  the  books  in  the 
20 


OF  KINGS'  TREASURIES 

British  Museum  (if  you  could  live  long 
enough),  and  remain  an  utterly  "illiter- 
ate," uneducated  person;  but  that  if  you 
read  ten  pages  of  a  good  book,  letter  by 
letter,— that  is  to  say,  with  real  accuracy,— 
you  are  forevermore  in  some  measure  an 
educated  person.  The  entire  difference 
between  education  and  non-education  (as 
regards  the  merely  intellectual  part  of  it) 
consists  in  this  accuracy.  A  well-educated 
gentleman  may  not  know  many  languages, 
—may  not  be  able  to  speak  any  but  his  own, 
—may  have  read  very  few  books.  But 
whatever  language  he  knows,  he  knows 
precisely;  whatever  word  he  pronounces,  he 
pronounces  rightly;  above  all,  he  is  learned 
in  the  peerage  of  words;  knows  the  words  of 
true  descent  and  ancient  blood,  at  a  glance, 
from  words  of  modern  canaille;  remembers 
all  their  ancestry,  their  intermarriages,  dis- 
tant relationships,  and  the  extent  to  which 
they  were  admitted,  and  offices  they  held, 
among  the  national  noblesse  of  words  at 
any  time,  and  in  any  country.  But  an 
uneducated  person  may  know,  by  memory, 
many  languages,  and  talk  them  all,  and  yet 
truly  know  not  a  word  of  any— not  a  word 
even  of  his  own.  An  ordinarily  clever  and 
sensible  seaman  will  be  able  to  make  his 
way  ashore  at  most  ports;  yet  he  has  only 
21 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


to  speak  a  sentence  of  any  language  to  be 
known  for  an  illiterate  person:  so  also  the 
accent,  or  turn  of  expression  of  a  single 
sentence,  will  at  once  mark  a  scholar.  And 
this  is  so  strongly  felt,  so  conclusively  ad- 
mitted, by  educated  persons,  that  a  false 
accent  or  a  mistaken  syllable  is  enough,  in 
the  parliament  of  any  civilized  nation,  to 
assign  to  a  man  a  certain  degree  of  inferior 
standing  forever. 

And  this  is  right;  but  it  is  a  pity  that  the 
accuracy  insisted  on  is  not  greater,  and 
required  to  a  serious  purpose.  It  is  right 
that  a  false  Latin  quantity  should  excite  a 
smile  in  the  House  of  Commons;  but  it  is 
wrong  that  a  false  English  meaning  should 
not  excite  a  frown  there.  Let  the  accent  of 
words  be  watched,  and  closely;  let  their 
meaning  be  watched  more  closely  still,  and 
fewer  will  do  the  work.  A  few  words  well 
chosen,  and  distinguished,  will  do  work  that 
a  thousand  cannot,  when  every  one  is  act- 
ing, equivocally,  in  the  function  of  another. 
Yes;  and  words,  if  they  are  not  watched, 
will  do  deadly  work  sometimes.  There  are 
masked  words  droning  and  skulking  about 
us  in  Europe  just  now  (there  never  were 
so  many,  owing  to  the  spread  of  a  shallow, 
blotching,  blundering,  infectious  "informa- 
tion," or  rather  deformation,  everywhere, 
22 


and  to  the  teaching  of  catechisms  and 
phrases  at  school  instead  of  human  mean- 
ings)—there  are  masked  words  abroad,  I 
say,  which  nobody  understands,  but  which 
everybody  uses,  and  most  people  will  also 
fight  for,  live  for,  or  even  die  for,  fancying 
they  mean  this  or  that,  or  the  other,  of 
things  dear  to  them:  for  such  words  wear 
chameleon  cloaks— "ground-lion"  cloaks, 
of  the  color  of  the  ground  of  any  man's 
fancy;  on  that  ground  they  lie  in  wait,  and 
rend  them  with  a  spring  from  it.  There 
never  were  creatures  of  prey  so  mischie- 
vous, never  diplomatists  so  cunning,  never 
poisoners  so  deadly,  as  these  masked  words; 
they  are  the  unjust  stewards  of  all  men's 
ideas.  Whatever  fancy  or  favorite  instinct 
a  man  most  cherishes,  he  gives  to  his  favor- 
ite masked  word  to  take  care  of  for  him; 
the  word  at  last  comes  to  have  an  infinite 
power  over  him,— you  cannot  get  at  him 
but  by  its  ministry. 

And  in  languages  so  mongrel  in  breed  as 
the  English,  there  is  a  fatal  power  of  equivo- 
cation put  into  men's  hands,  almost  whether 
they  will  or  no,  in  being  able  to  use  Greek 
or  Latin  words  for  an  idea  when  they  want 
it  to  be  awful,  and  Saxon  or  otherwise  com- 
mon words  when  they  want  it  to  be  vulgar. 
What  a  singular  and  salutary  effect,  for  in- 
23 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


stance,  would  be  produced  on  the  minds  of 
people  who  are  in  the  habit  of  taking  the 
Form  of  the  "  Word  "  they  live  by,  for  the 
Power  of  which  that  Word  tells  them,  if  we 
always  either  retained,  or  refused,  the  Greek 
form  "biblos,"  or  "biblion,"  as  the  right  ex- 
pression for  "book"— instead  of  employing 
it  only  in  the  one  instance  in  which  we  wish 
to  give  dignity  to  the  idea,  and  translating 
it  into  English  everywhere  else.  How 
wholesome  it  would  be  for  many  simple  per- 
sons if,  in  such  places  (for  instance)  as  Acts 
xix.  19,  we  retained  the  Greek  expression, 
instead  of  translating  it,  and  they  had  to 
read,  "  Many  of  them  also  which  used  curi- 
ous arts  brought  their  bibles  together,  and 
burnt  them  before  all  men:  and  they 
counted  the  price  of  them,  and  found  it 
fifty  thousand  pieces  of  silver"!  Or  if,  on 
the  other  hand,  we  translated  where  we 
retain  it,  and  always  spoke  of  "The  Holy 
Book,"  instead  of  "Holy  Bible,"  it  might 
come  into  more  heads  than  it  does  at  pres- 
ent, that  the  Word  of  God,  by  which  the 
heavens  were.,  of  old,  and  by  which  they  are 
now  kept  in  store,1  cannot  be  made  a  pres- 
ent of  to  anybody  in  morocco  binding;  nor 
sown  on  any  wayside  by  help  either  of  steam- 
plow  or  steam-press;  but  is  nevertheless 

i  2  Peter  iil.  6-7. 
24 


OF   KINGS'   TREASURIES 

being  offered  to  us  daily,  and  by  us  with 
contumely  refused;  and  sown  in  us  daily, 
and  by  us,  as  instantly  as  may  be,  choked. 
So,  again,  consider  what  effect  has  been 
produced  on  the  English  vulgar  mind  by  the 
use  of  the  sonorous  Latin  form  "damno,"  in 
translating  the  Greek  Karanpivu,  when  peo- 
ple charitably  wish  to  make  it  forcible;  and 
the  substitution  of  the  temperate  "con- 
demn "  for  it,  when  they  choose  to  keep  it 
gentle;  and  what  notable  sermons  have  been 
preached  by  illiterate  clergymen  on,  "He 
that  believeth  not  shall  be  damned";  though 
they  would  shrink  with  horror  from  trans- 
lating Heb.  xi.  7,  "The  saving  of  his  house, 
by  which  he  damned  the  world,"  or  John 
viii.  10,  11,  "Woman,  hath  no  man  damned 
thee?  She  saith,  No  man,  Lord.  Jesus 
answered  her,  Neither  do  I  damn  thee:  go, 
and  sin  no  more."  And  divisions  in  the 
mind  of  Europe,  which  have  cost  seas  of 
blood,  and  in  the  defense  of  which  the 
noblest  souls  of  men  have  been  cast  away 
in  frantic  desolation,  countless  as  forest 
leaves,— though,  in  the  heart  of  them, 
founded  on  deeper  causes,— have  neverthe- 
less been  rendered  practically  possible, 
mainly,  by  the  European  adoption  of  the 
Greek  word  for  a  public  meeting,  "  ecclesia," 
to  give  peculiar  respectability  to  such  meet- 
25 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


ings,  when  held  for  religious  purposes;  and 
other  collateral  equivocations,  such  as  the 
vulgar  English  one  of  using  the  word 
"priest"  as  a  contraction  for  "presbyter." 
Now,  in  order  to  deal  with  words  rightly, 
this  is  the  habit  you  must  form.  Nearly 
every  word  in  your  language  has  been  first 
a  word  of  some  other  language— of  Saxon, 
German,  French,  Latin,  or  Greek  (not  to 
speak  of  Eastern  and  primitive  dialects). 
And  many  words  have  been  all  these— that 
is  to  say,  have  been  Greek  first,  Latin  next, 
French  or  German  next,  and  English  last: 
undergoing  a  certain  change  of  sense  and 
use  on  the  lips  of  each  nation,  but  retain- 
ing a  deep  vital  meaning,  which  all  good 
scholars  feel  in  employing  them,  even  at 
this  day.  If  you  do  not  know  the  Greek 
alphabet,  learn  it;  young  or  old,— girl  or 
boy,— whoever  you  may  be,  if  you  think  of 
reading  seriously  (which,  of  course,  implies 
that  you  have  some  leisure  at  command), 
learn  your  Greek  alphabet;  then  get  good 
dictionaries  of  all  these  languages,  and 
whenever  you  are  in  doubt  about  a  word, 
hunt  it  down  patiently.  Read  Max  Miiller's 
lectures  thoroughly,  to  begin  with;  and, 
after  that,  never  let  a  word  escape  you  that 
looks  suspicious.  It  is  severe  work;  but  you 
will  find  it,  even  at  first,  interesting,  and  at 
26 


OF   KINGS'  TREASURIES 

last  endlessly  amusing.  And  the  general 
gain  to  your  character,  in  power  and  preci- 
sion, will  be  quite  incalculable. 

Mind,  this  does  not  imply  knowing,  or 
trying  to  know,  Greek  or  Latin  or  French. 
It  takes  a  whole  life  to  learn  any  language 
perfectly.  But  you  can  easily  ascertain  the 
meanings  through  which  the  English  word 
has  passed;  and  those  which  in  a  good 
writer's  work  it  must  still  bear. 

And  now,  merely  for  example's  sake,  I 
will,  with  your  permission,  read  a  few  lines 
of  a  true  book  with  you,  carefully,  and  see 
what  will  come  out  of  them.  I  will  take  a 
book  perfectly  known  to  you  all.  No  Eng- 
lish words  are  more  familiar  to  us,  yet  few 
perhaps  have  been  read  with  less  sincerity. 
I  will  take  these  few  following  lines  of 
"Lycidas": 

Last  came,  and  last  did  go, 

The  pilot  of  the  Galilean  lake. 

Two  massy  keys  he  bore  of  metals  twain, 

( The  golden  opes,  the  iron  shuts  amain, ) 

He  shook  his  mitered  locks,  and  stern  bespake, 

"How  well  could  I  have  spared  for  thee,  young 

swain, 

Enow  of  such  as  for  their  bellies'  sake 
Creep,  and  intrude,  and  climb  into  the  fold ! 
Of  other  care  they  little  reckoning  make, 
Than  how  to  scramble  at  the  shearers'  feast, 
And  shove  away  the  worthy  bidden  guest ; 

27 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


Blind  mouths !  that  scarce  themselves  know  how 

to  hold 

A  sheep-hook,  or  have  learn'd  aught  else,  the  least 
That  to  the  faithful  herdman's  art  belongs ! 
What  recks  it  them?    What  need  they?    They 

are  sped ; 

And  when  they  list,  their  lean  and  flashy  songs 
Grate  on  their  scrannel  pipes  of  wretched  straw ; 
The  hungry  sheep  look  up,  and  are  not  fed, 
But,  swoln  with  wind,  and  the  rank  mist  they 

draw, 

Rot  inwardly,  and  foul  contagion  spread ; 
Besides  what  the  grim  wolf  with  privy  paw 
Daily  devours  apace,  and  nothing  said." 

Let  us  think  over  this  passage,  and  ex- 
amine its  words. 

First,  is  it  not  singular  to  find  Milton 
assigning  to  St.  Peter,  not  only  his  full  epis- 
copal function,  but  the  very  types  of  it 
which  Protestants  usually  refuse  most  pas- 
sionately? His  "mitered"  locks!  Milton 
was  no  Bishop-lover;  how  comes  St.  Peter 
to  be  "mitered"?  "Two  massy  keys  he 
bore."  Is  this,  then,  the  power  of  the  keys 
claimed  by  the  Bishops  of  Rome?  and  is 
it  acknowledged  here  by  Milton  only  in  a 
poetical  license,  for  the  sake  of  its  pictur- 
esqueness,  that  he  may  get  the  gleam  of 
the  golden  keys  to  help  his  effect? 

Do  not  think  it.  Great  men  do  not  play 
stage  tricks  with  the  doctrines  of  life  and 
death;  only  little  men  do  that.  Milton 
28 


OF   KINGS'   TREASURIES 

means  what  he  says,  and  means  it  with  his 
might  too— is  going  to  put  the  whole 
strength  of  his  spirit  presently  into  the  say- 
ing of  it.  For  though  not  a  lover  of  false 
bishops,  he  was  a  lover  of  true  ones;  and 
the  Lake-pilot  is  here,  in  his  thoughts,  the 
type  and  head  of  true  episcopal  power.  For 
Milton  reads  that  text,  "I  will  give  unto 
thee  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven," 
quite  honestly.  Puritan  though  he  be,  he 
would  not  blot  it  out  of  the  book  because 
there  have  been  bad  bishops.  Nay,  in  order 
to  understand  him,  we  must  understand 
that  verse  first;  it  will  not  do  to  eye  it 
askance,  or  whisper  it  under  our  breath,  as  if 
it  were  a  weapon  of  an  adverse  sect.  It  is 
a  solemn,  universal  assertion,  deeply  to  be 
kept  in  mind  by  all  sects.  But  perhaps  we 
shall  be  better  able  to  reason  on  it  if  we  go 
on  a  little  farther,  and  come  back  to  it. 
For  clearly  this  marked  insistence  on  the 
power  of  the  true  episcopate  is  to  make  us 
feel  more  weightily  what  is  to  be  charged 
against  the  false  claimants  of  episcopate; 
or  generally,  against  false  claimants  of 
power  and  rank  in  the  body  of  the  clergy; 
they  who, "  for  their  bellies'  sake,  creep,  and 
intrude,  and  climb  into  the  fold." 

Never  think  Milton  uses  those  three  words 
to  fill  up  his  verse,  as  a  loose  writer  would. 
29 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


He  needs  all  the  three;— especially  those 
three,  and  no  more  than  those— "creep," 
and  "intrude,"  and  "climb";  no  other 
words  would  or  could  serve  the  turn,  and 
no  more  could  be  added.  For  they  exhaus- 
tively comprehend  the  three  classes,  cor- 
respondent to  the  three  characters,  of  men 
who  dishonestly  seek  ecclesiastical  power. 
First,  those  who  "creep  "  into  the  fold,  who 
do  not  care  for  office,  nor  name,  but  for 
secret  influence,  and  do  all  things  occultly 
and  cunningly,  consenting  to  any  servility 
of  office  or  conduct,  so  only  that  they  may 
intimately  discern,  and  unawares  direct, 
the  minds  of  men.  Then  those  who  "in- 
trude "  (thrust,  that  is)  themselves  into  the 
fold,  who  by  natural  insolence  of  heart,  and 
stout  eloquence  of  tongue,  and  fearlessly 
perseverant  self-assertion,  obtain  hearing 
and  authority  with  the  common  crowd. 
Lastly,  those  who  "climb,"  who  by  labor 
and  learning,  both  stout  and  sound,  but 
selfishly  exerted  in  the  cause  of  their  own 
ambition,  gain  high  dignities  and  authori- 
ties, and  become  "lords  over  the  heritage," 
though  not  "  ensamples  to  the  flock." 
Now  go  on: 

Of  other  care  they  little  reckoning  make, 
Than  how  to  scramble  at  the  shearers'  feast. 
Blind  mouths  — 

30 


OF   KINGS'   TREASURIES 

I  pause  again,  for  this  is  a  strange  ex- 
pression; a  broken  metaphor,  one  might 
think,  careless  and  unscholarly. 

Not  so:  its  very  audacity  and  pithiness 
are  intended  to  make  us  look  close  at  the 
phrase  and  remember  it.  Those  two  mono- 
syllables express  the  precisely  accurate 
contraries  of  right  character,  in  the  two 
great  offices  of  the  Church— those  of  bishop 
and  pastor. 

A  "Bishop"  means  "a  person  who  sees." 

A  "  Pastor  "  means  "  a  person  who  feeds." 

The  most  unbishoply  character  a  man 
can  have  is  therefore  to  be  Blind. 

The  most  unpastoral  is,  instead  of  feed- 
ing, to  want  to  be  fed,— to  be  a  Mouth. 

Take  the  two  reverses  together,  and  you 
have  "blind  mouths."  We  may  advisably 
follow  out  this  idea  a  little.  Nearly  all  the 
evils  in  the  Church  have  arisen  from  bishops 
desiring  power  more  than  light.  They  want 
authority,  not  outlook.  Whereas  their  real 
office  is  not  to  rule;  though  it  may  be  vig- 
orously to  exhort  and  rebuke.  It  is  the 
king's  office  to  rule;  the  bishop's  office  is  to 
oversee  the  flock;  to  number  it,  sheep  by 
sheep;  to  be  ready  always  to  give  full  ac- 
count of  it.  Now  it  is  clear  he  cannot  give 
account  of  the  souls,  if  he  has  not  so  much 
as  numbered  the  bodies,  of  his  flock.  The 
31 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


first  thing,  therefore,  that  a  bishop  has  to 
do  is  at  least  to  put  himself  in  a  position  in 
which,  at  any  moment,  he  can  obtain  the 
history,  from  childhood,  of  every  living  soul 
in  his  diocese,  and  of  its  present  state. 
Down  in  that  back  street,  Bill  and  Nancy, 
knocking  each  other's  teeth  out!  Does  the 
bishop  know  all  about  it?  Has  he  his  eye 
upon  them?  Has  he  had  his  eye  upon 
them?  Can  he  circumstantially  explain  to 
us  how  Bill  got  into  the  habit  of  beating 
Nancy  about  the  head?  If  he  cannot,  he  is 
no  bishop,  though  he  had  a  miter  as  high 
as  Salisbury  steeple;  he  is  no  bishop,— he 
has  sought  to  be  at  the  helm  instead  of 
the  masthead;  he  has  no  sight  of  things. 
"  Nay,"  you  say,  "  it  is  not  his  duty  to  look 
after  Bill  in  the  back  street."  What!  the 
fat  sheep  that  have  full  fleeces— you  think  it 
is  only  those  he  should  look  after  while  (go 
back  to  your  Milton)  "the  hungry  sheep 
look  up,  and  are  not  fed,  besides  what  the 
grim  wolf  with  privy  paw  "  (bishops  know- 
ing nothing  about  it)  "  daily  devours  apace, 
and  nothing  said  "? 

"  But  that 's  not  our  idea  of  a  bishop." l 
Perhaps  not;  but  it  was  St.  Paul's;  and  it 
was  Milton's.  They  may  be  right,  or  we 
may  be;  but  we  must  not  think  we  are 

i  Compare  the  13th  Letter  in  "  Time  and  Tide." 

32 


OF   KINGS'  TREASURIES 

reading  either  one  or  the  other  by  putting 
our  meaning  into  their  words. 
I  go  on. 

But  swoln  with  wind,  and  the  rank  mist  they 
draw. 

This  is  to  meet  the  vulgar  answer  that 
"if  the  poor  are  not  looked  after  in  their 
bodies,  they  are  in  their  souls;  they  have 
spiritual  food." 

And  Milton  says,  "They  have  no  such 
thing  as  spiritual  food;  they  are  only  swollen 
with  wind."  At  first  you  may  think  that 
is  a  coarse  type  and  an  obscure  one.  But 
again,  it  is  a  quite  literally  accurate  one. 
Take  up  your  Latin  and  Greek  dictionaries, 
and  find  out  the  meaning  of  "Spirit."  It 
is  only  a  contraction  of  the  Latin  word 
"breath,"  and  an  indistinct  translation  of 
the  Greek  word  for  "wind."  The  same 
word  is  used  in  writing,  "  The  wind  bloweth 
where  it  listeth";  and  in  writing,  "So  is 
every  one  that  is  born  of  the  Spirit ";  born 
of  the  breath,  that  is;  for  it  means  the 
breath  of  God,  in  soul  and  body.  We  have 
the  true  sense  of  it  in  our  words  "  inspira- 
tion" and  "expire."  Now,  there  are  two 
kinds  of  breath  with  which  the  flock  may 
be  filled— God's  breath  and  man's.  The 
breath  of  God  is  health  and  life  and  peace 
3  33 


SESAME  AND  LILIES 


to  them,  as  the  air  of  heaven  is  to  the 
flocks  on  the  hills;  but  man's  breath— 
the  word  which  he  calls  spiritual— is  disease 
and  contagion  to  them,  as  the  fog  of  the 
fen.  They  rot  inwardly  with  it;  they  are 
puffed  up  by  it,  as  a  dead  body  by  the  vapors 
of  its  own  decomposition.  This  is  literally 
true  of  all  false  religious  teaching;  the  first 
and  last,  and  fatalest  sign  of  it,  is  that 
"puffing  up."  Your  converted  children, 
who  teach  their  parents;  your  converted 
convicts,  who  teach  honest  men;  your  con- 
verted dunces,  who,  having  lived  in  cre- 
tinous stupefaction  half  their  lives,  sud- 
denly awaking  to  the  fact  of  there  being  a 
God,  fancy  themselves  therefore  His  pecu- 
liar people  and  messengers;  your  sectarians 
of  every  species,  small  and  great,  Catholic 
or  Protestant,  of  high  church  or  low,  in  so 
far  as  they  think  themselves  exclusively  in 
the  right  and  others  wrong;  and,  preemi- 
nently, in  every  sect,  those  who  hold  that 
men  can  be  saved  by  thinking  rightly  in- 
stead of  doing  rightly,  by  word  instead  of 
act,  and  wish  instead  of  work;— these  are 
the  true  fog  children— clouds,  these,  with- 
out water ;  bodies,  these,  of  putrescent  vapor 
and  skin,  without  blood  or  flesh;  blown  bag- 
pipes for  the  fiends  to  pipe  with— corrupt 
and  corrupting,—"  Swoln  with  wind,  and  the 
rank  mist  they  draw." 
34 


OF   KINGS'  TREASURIES 


Lastly,  let  us  return  to  the  lines  respect- 
ing the  power  of  the  keys,  for  now  we  can 
understand  them.  Note  the  difference  be- 
tween Milton  and  Dante  in  their  interpreta- 
tion of  this  power.  For  once,  the  latter  is 
weaker  in  thought;  he  supposes  both  the 
keys  to  be  of  the  gate  of  heaven;  one  is  of 
gold,  the  other  of  silver;  they  are  given 
by  St.  Peter  to  the  sentinel  angel;  and  it  is 
not  easy  to  determine  the  meaning  either 
of  the  substances  of  the  three  steps  of  the 
gate,  or  of  the  two  keys.  But  Milton  makes 
one,  of  gold,  the  key  of  heaven;  the  other, 
of  iron,  the  key  of  the  prison  in  which  the 
wicked  teachers  are  to  be  bound  who  "  have 
taken  away  the  key  of  knowledge,  yet  en- 
tered not  in  themselves." 

We  have  seen  that  the  duties  of  bishop 
and  pastor  are  to  see  and  feed;  and  of  all 
who  do  so  it  is  said,  "He  that  watereth 
shall  be  watered  also  himself."  But  the 
reverse  is  truth  also.  He  that  watereth 
not  shall  be  withered  himself;  and  he  that 
seeth  not  shall  himself  be  shut  out  of  sight 
—shut  into  the  perpetual  prison-house. 
And  that  prison  opens  here,  as  well  as 
hereafter:  he  who  is  to  be  bound  in  heaven 
must  first  be  bound  on  earth.  That  com- 
mand to  the  strong  angels,  of  which  the 
rock-apostle  is  the  image,  "Take  him,  and 
bind  him  hand  and  foot,  and  cast  him  out," 
35 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


issues,  in  its  measure,  against  the  teacher, 
for  every  help  withheld,  and  for  every  truth 
refused,  and  for  every  falsehood  enforced; 
so  that  he  is  more  strictly  fettered  the 
more  he  fetters,  and  farther  outcast  as  he 
more  and  more  misleads,  till  at  last  the 
bars  of  the  iron  cage  close  upon  him,  and 
as  "  the  golden  opes,  the  iron  shuts  amain." 
We  have  got  something  out  of  the  lines, 
I  think,  and  much  more  is  yet  to  be  found 
in  them;  but  we  have  done  enough  by  way 
of  example  of  the  kind  of  word-by-word  ex- 
amination of  your  author  which  is  rightly 
called  "reading";  watching  every  accent 
and  expression,  and  putting  ourselves  al- 
ways in  the  author's  place,  annihilating  our 
own  personality,  and  seeking  to  enter  into 
his,  so  as  to  be  able  assuredly  to  say,  "Thus 
Milton  thought,"  not  "Thus  /  thought,  in 
misreading  Milton."  And  by  this  process 
you  will  gradually  come  to  attach  less 
weight  to  your  own  "  Thus  I  thought "  at 
other  times.  You  will  begin  to  perceive 
that  what  you  thought  was  a  matter  of  no 
serious  importance;— that  your  thoughts 
on  any  subject  are  not  perhaps  the  clearest 
and  wisest  that  could  be  arrived  at  there- 
upon:—in  fact,  that  unless  you  are  a  very 
singular  person,  you  cannot  be  said  to  have 
any  "thoughts"  at  all;  that  you  have  no 
36 


OF   KINGS'  TREASURIES 

materials  for  them,  in  any  serious  mat- 
ters";1—no  right  to  "think,"  but  only  to 
try  to  learn  more  of  the  facts.  Nay,  most 
probably  all  your  life  (unless,  as  I  said,  you 
are  a  singular  person)  you  will  have  no 
legitimate  right  to  an  "opinion"  on  any 
business,  except  that  instantly  under  your 
hand.  What  must  of  necessity  be  done,  you 
can  always  find  out,  beyond  question,  how 
to  do.  Have  you  a  house  to  keep  in  order, 
a  commodity  to  sell,  a  field  to  plow,  a  ditch 
to  cleanse?  There  need  be  no  two  opinions 
about  these  proceedings;  it  is  at  your  peril 
if  you  have  not  much  more  than  an  "  opin- 
ion "  on  the  way  to  manage  such  matters. 
And  also,  outside  of  your  own  business, 
there  are  one  or  two  subjects  on  which  you 
are  bound  to  have  but  one  opinion.  That 
roguery  and  lying  are  objectionable,  and 
are  instantly  to  be  flogged  out  of  the  way 
whenever  discovered;— that  covetousness 
and  love  of  quarreling  are  dangerous  dis- 
positions even  in  children,  and  deadly  dis- 
positions in  men  and  nations;— that,  in  the 
end,  the  God  of  heaven  and  earth  loves 
active,  modest,  and  kind  people,  and  hates 
idle,  proud,  greedy,  and  cruel  ones;— on 

1  Modern  "Education"  for  the  most  part  signifies  giving 
people  the  faculty  of  thinking  wrong  on  every  conceivable 
subject  of  importance  to  them. 

37 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


these  general  facts  you  are  bound  to  have 
but  one,  and  that  a  very  strong,  opinion. 
For  the  rest,  respecting  religions,  govern- 
ments, sciences,  arts,  you  will  find  that,  on 
the  whole,  you  can  know  NOTHING,— judge 
nothing;  that  the  best  you  can  do,  even 
though  you  may  be  a  well-educated  person, 
is  to  be  silent,  and  strive  to  be  wiser  every 
day,  and  to  understand  a  little  more  of  the 
thoughts  of  others,  which  so  soon  as  you 
try  to  do  honestly,  you  will  discover  that 
the  thoughts  even  of  the  wisest  are  very 
little  more  than  pertinent  questions.  To 
put  the  difficulty  into  a  clear  shape,  and  ex- 
hibit to  you  the  grounds  for  indecision,  that 
is  all  they  can  generally  do  for  you!— and 
well  for  them  and  for  us,  if  indeed  they  are 
able  "  to  mix  the  music  with  our  thoughts 
and  sadden  us  with  heavenly  doubts."  This 
writer  from  whom  I  have  been  reading  to 
you  is  not  among  the  first  or  wisest:  he 
sees  shrewdly  as  far  as  he  sees,  and  there- 
fore it  is  easy  to  find  out  his  full  meaning; 
but  with  the  greater  men,  you  cannot  fath- 
om their  meaning;  they  do  not  even  wholly 
measure  it  themselves,— it  is  so  wide.  Sup- 
pose I  had  asked  you,  for  instance,  to  seek 
for  Shakspere's  opinion,  instead  of  Milton's, 
on  this  matter  of  Church  authority  ?— or  for 
Dante's?  Have  any  of  you,  at  this  instant, 
38 


OF  KINGS'  TREASURIES 

the  least  idea  what  either  thought  about 
it?  Have  you  ever  balanced  the  scene  with 
the  bishops  in  "Richard  III"  against  the 
character  of  Cranmer?  the  description  of 
St.  Francis  and  St.  Dominic  against  that  of 
him  who  made  Virgil  wonder  to  gaze  upon 
him,— "disteso,  tanto  vilmente,  nell'  eterno 
esilio  ";  or  of  him  whom  Dante  stood  beside, 
"  come  '1  frate  che  conf essa  lo  perfido  assas- 
sin "? l  Shakspere  and  Alighieri  knew  men 
better  than  most  of  us,  I  presume!  They 
were  both  in  the  midst  of  the  main  strug- 
gle between  the  temporal  and  spiritual 
powers.  They  had  an  opinion,  we  may 
guess.  But  where  is  it?  Bring  it  into 
court!  Put  Shakspere's  or  Dante's  creed 
into  articles,  and  send  it  up  for  trial  by  the 
Ecclesiastical  Courts! 

You  will  not  be  able,  I  tell  you  again,  for 
many  and  many  a  day,  to  come  at  the  real 
purposes  and  teaching  of  these  great  men; 
but  a  very  little  honest  study  of  them  will 
enable  you  to  perceive  that  what  you  took 
for  your  own  "judgment "  was  mere  chance 
prejudice,  and  drifted,  helpless,  entangled 
weed  of  castaway  thought;  nay,  you  will  see 
that  most  men's  minds  are  indeed  little 
better  than  rough  heath  wilderness,  neg- 
lected and  stubborn,  partly  barren,  partly 

i  Inf.  xxiii.  125,  126 ;  xix.  49,  50. 

39 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


overgrown  with  pestilent  brakes  and  ven- 
omous, wind-sown  herbage  of  evil  surmise; 
that  the  first  thing  you  have  to  do  for  them, 
and  yourself,  is  eagerly  and  scornfully  to 
set  fire  to  this;  burn  all  the  jungle  into 
wholesome  ash-heaps,  and  then  plow  and 
sow.  All  the  true  literary  work  before  you, 
for  life,  must  begin  with  obedience  to  that 
order,  "Break  up  your  fallow  ground,  and 
sow  not  among  thorns." 

Having  then  faithfully  listened  to  the 
great  teachers,  that  you  may  enter  into 
their  Thoughts,  you  have  yet  this  higher 
advance  to  make:  you  have  to  enter  into 
their  Hearts.  As  you  go  to  them  first  for 
clear  sight,  so  you  must  stay  with  them, 
that  you  may  share  at  last  their  just  and 
mighty  Passion.  Passion,  or  "sensation." 
I  am  not  afraid  of  the  word;  still  less  of 
the  thing.  You  have  heard  many  outcries 
against  sensation  lately;  but,  I  can  tell  you, 
it  is  not  less  sensation  we  want,  but  more. 
The  ennobling  difference  between  one  man 
and  another,— between  one  animal  and  an- 
other,—is  precisely  in  this,  that  one  feels 
more  than  another.  If  we  were  sponges, 
perhaps  sensation  might  not  be  easily  got 
for  us;  if  we  were  earthworms,  liable  at 
every  instant  to  be  cut  in  two  by  the  spade, 
perhaps  too  much  sensation  might  not  be 
40 


OF   KINGS'   TREASURIES 

good  for  us.  But  being  human  creatures, 
it  is  good  for  us;  nay,  we  are  only  human  in 
so  far  as  we  are  sensitive,  and  our  honor  is 
precisely  in  proportion  to  our  passion. 

You  know  I  said  of  that  great  and  pure 
society  of  the  Dead,  that  it  would  allow 
"no  vain  or  vulgar  person  to  enter  there." 
What  do  you  think  I  meant  by  a  "  vulgar  " 
person?  What  do  you  yourselves  mean  by 
"vulgarity"?  You  will  find  it  a  fruitful 
subject  of  thought;  but,  briefly,  the  essence 
of  all  vulgarity  lies  in  want  of  sensation. 
Simple  and  innocent  vulgarity  is  merely 
an  untrained  and  undeveloped  bluntness  of 
body  and  mind;  but  in  true  inbred  vulgar- 
ity there  is  a  dreadful  callousness,  which, 
in  extremity,  becomes  capable  of  every  sort 
of  bestial  habit  and  crime,  without  fear, 
without  pleasure,  without  horror,  and  with- 
out pity.  It  is  in  the  blunt  hand  and  the 
dead  heart,  in  the  diseased  habit,  in  the 
hardened  conscience,  that  men  become  vul- 
gar; they  are  forever  vulgar,  precisely  in 
proportion  as  they  are  incapable  of  sympa- 
thy,—of  quick  understanding,— of  all  that, 
in  deep  insistence  on  the  common  but  most 
accurate  term,  may  be  called  the  "  tact,"  or 
"touch-faculty,"  of  body  and  soul:  that  tact 
which  the  Mimosa  has  in  trees,  which  the 
pure  woman  has  above  all  creatures;— fine- 
41 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


ness  and  fullness  of  sensation,  beyond  rea- 
son;—the  guide  and  sanctifier  of  reason 
itself.  Reason  can  but  determine  what  is 
true:— it  is  the  God-given  passion  of  hu- 
manity which  alone  can  recognize  what  God 
has  made  good. 

We  come  then  to  that  great  concourse  of 
the  Dead,  not  merely  to  know  from  them 
what  is  True,  but  chiefly  to  feel  with  them 
what  is  just.  Now,  to  feel  with  them,  we 
must  be  like  them;  and  none  of  us  can 
become  that  without  pains.  As  the  true 
knowledge  is  disciplined  and  tested  know- 
ledge,—not  the  first  thought  that  comes,  so 
the  true  passion  is  disciplined  and  tested 
passion,— not  the  first  passion  that  comes. 
The  first  that  come  are  the  vain,  the  false, 
the  treacherous;  if  you  yield  to  them  they 
will  lead  you  wildly  and  far,  in  vain  pursuit, 
in  hollow  enthusiasm,  till  you  have  no  true 
purpose  and  no  true  passion  left.  Not  that 
any  feeling  possible  to  humanity  is  in  itself 
wrong,  but  only  wrong  when  undisciplined. 
Its  nobility  is  in  its  force  and  justice;  it  is 
wrong  when  it  is  weak,  and  felt  for  paltry 
cause.  There  is  a  mean  wonder,  as  of  a 
child  who  sees  a  juggler  tossing  golden 
balls;  and  this  is  base,  if  you  will.  But  do 
you  think  that  the  wonder  is  ignoble,  or  the 
sensation  less,  with  which  every  human 
42 


OF   KINGS'  TREASURIES 

soul  is  called  to  watch  the  golden  halls  of 
heaven  tossed  through  the  night  by  the 
Hand  that  made  them?  There  is  a  mean 
curiosity,  as  of  a  child  opening  a  forbidden 
door,  or  a  servant  prying  into  her  master's 
business;— and  a  noble  curiosity,  question- 
ing, in  the  front  of  danger,  the  source  of 
the  great  river  beyond  the  sand,— the  place 
of  the  great  continents  beyond  the  sea;— a 
nobler  curiosity  still,  which  questions  of 
the  source  of  the  River  of  Life,  and  of  the 
space  of  the  Continent  of  Heaven,— things 
which  "  the  angels  desire  to  look  into."  So 
the  anxiety  is  ignoble  with  which  you  linger 
over  the  course  and  catastrophe  of  an  idle 
tale;  but  do  you  think  the  anxiety  is  less,  or 
greater,  with  which  you  watch,  or  ought  to 
watch,  the  dealings  of  fate  and  destiny  with 
the  life  of  an  agonized  nation?  Alas!  it  is 
the  narrowness,  selfishness,  minuteness,  of 
your  sensation  that  you  have  to  deplore 
in  England  at  this  day;— sensation  which 
spends  itself  in  bouquets  and  speeches,  in 
revelings  and  junketings,  in  sham  fights 
and  gay  puppet  shows,  while  you  can  look 
on  and  see  noble  nations  murdered,  man  by 
man,  without  an  effort  or  a  tear. 

I  said  "minuteness"  and  "selfishness" 
of  sensation,  but  it  would  have  been  enough 
to  have  said  "injustice"  or  "unrighteous- 
43 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


ness"  of  sensation.  For  as  in  nothing  is 
a  gentleman  better  to  be  discerned  from  a 
vulgar  person,  so  in  nothing  is  a  gentle 
nation  (such  nations  have  been)  better  to 
be  discerned  from  a  mob,  than  in  this,— 
that  their  feelings  are  constant  and  just, 
results  of  due  contemplation  and  of  equal 
thought.  You  can  talk  a  mob  into  anything; 
its  feelings  may  be,— usually  are,— on  the 
whole,  generous  and  right;  but  it  has  no 
foundation  for  them,  no  hold  of  them;  you 
may  tease  or  tickle  it  into  any,  at  your  plea- 
sure; it  thinks  by  infection,  for  the  most 
part,  catching  an  opinion  like  a  cold,  and 
there  is  nothing  so  little  that  it  will  not 
roar  itself  wild  about,  when  the  fit  is  on;— 
nothing  so  great  but  it  will  forget  in  an 
hour,  when  the  fit  is  past.  But  a  gentle- 
man's, or  a  gentle  nation's,  passions  are 
just,  measured,  and  continuous.  A  great 
nation,  for  instance,  does  not  spend  its 
entire  national  wits  for  a  couple  of  months 
in  weighing  evidence  of  a  single  ruffian's 
having  done  a  single  murder;  and  for  a 
couple  of  years  see  its  own  children  murder 
each  other  by  their  thousands  or  tens  of 
thousands  a  day,  considering  only  what  the 
effect  is  likely  to  be  on  the  price  of  cotton, 
and  caring  nowise  to  determine  which  side 
of  battle  is  in  the  wrong.  Neither  does  a 
44 


OF   KINGS'  TREASURIES 

great  nation  send  its  poor  little  boys  to  jail 
for  stealing  six  walnuts,  and  allow  its  bank- 
rupts to  steal  their  hundreds  of  thousands 
with  a  bow,  and  its  bankers,  rich  with  poor 
men's  savings,  to  close  their  doors  "under 
circumstances  over  which  they  have  no 
control,"  with  a  "by  your  leave  ";  and  large 
landed  estates  to  be  bought  by  men  who 
have  made  their  money  by  going  with 
armed  steamers  up  and  down  the  China 
Seas,  selling  opium  at  the  cannon's  mouth, 
and  altering,  for  the  benefit  of  the  foreign 
nation,  the  common  highwayman's  demand 
of  "your  money  or  your  life,"  into  that  of 
"your  money  and  your  life."  Neither  does 
a  great  nation  allow  the  lives  of  its  inno- 
cent poor  to  be  parched  out  of  them  by  fog 
fever,  and  rotted  out  of  them  by  dunghill 
plague,  for  the  sake  of  sixpence  a  life  extra 
per  week  to  its  landlords; 1  and  then  debate, 
with  driveling  tears  and  diabolical  sympa- 
thies, whether  it  ought  not  piously  to  save, 
and  nursingly  cherish,  the  lives  of  its  mur- 
derers. Also,  a  great  nation,  having  made 
up  its  mind  that  hanging  is  quite  the  whole- 
somest  process  for  its  homicides  in  general, 
can  yet  with  mercy  distinguish  between 

1  See  note  at  end  of  lecture.  I  have  put  it  in  large  type,  be- 
cause the  course  of  matters  since  it  was  written  has  made  it 
perhaps  better  worth  attention. 

45 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


the  degrees  of  guilt  in  homicides;  and  does 
not  yelp  like  a  pack  of  frost-pinched  wolf- 
cubs  on  the  blood-track  of  an  unhappy 
crazed  boy,  or  gray-haired  clodpate  Othello, 
"perplexed  i'  the  extreme,"  at  the  very  mo- 
ment that  it  is  sending  a  Minister  of  the 
Crown  to  make  polite  speeches  to  a  man 
who  is  bayoneting  young  girls  in  their 
fathers'  sight,  and  killing  noble  youths  in 
cool  blood,  faster  than  a  country  butcher 
kills  lambs  in  spring.  And,  lastly,  a  great 
nation  does  not  mock  Heaven  and  its  Pow- 
ers, by  pretending  belief  in  a  revelation 
which  asserts  the  love  of  money  to  be  the 
root  of  all  evil,  and  declaring,  at  the  same 
time,  that  it  is  actuated,  and  intends  to  be 
actuated,  in  all  chief  national  deeds  and 
measures,  by  no  other  love. 

My  friends,  I  do  not  know  why  any  of  us 
should  talk  about  reading.  We  want  some 
sharper  discipline  than  that  of  reading;  but, 
at  all  events,  be  assured,  we  cannot  read. 
No  reading  is  possible  for  a  people  with  its 
mind  in  this  state.  No  sentence  of  any 
great  writer  is  intelligible  to  them.  It  is 
simply  and  sternly  impossible  for  the  Eng- 
lish public,  at  this  moment,  to  understand 
any  thoughtful  writing,— so  incapable  of 
thought  has  it  become  in  its  insanity  of 
avarice.  Happily,  our  disease  is,  as  yet, 
46 


OF  KINGS'  TREASURIES 


little  worse  than  this  incapacity  of  thought; 
it  is  not  corruption  of  the  inner  nature;  we 
ring  true  still,  when  anything  strikes  home 
to  us;  and  though  the  idea  that  everything 
should  "  pay  "  has  infected  our  every  pur- 
pose so  deeply  that  even  when  we  would 
play  the  good  Samaritan  we  never  take  out 
our  twopence  and  give  them  to  the  host 
without  saying,  "  When  I  come  again,  thou 
shalt  give  me  fourpence,"  there  is  a  capa- 
city of  noble  passion  left  in  our  hearts'  core. 
We  show  it  in  our  work— in  our  war,— even 
in  those  unjust  domestic  affections  which 
make  us  furious  at  a  small  private  wrong, 
while  we  are  polite  to  a  boundless  public 
one:  we  are  still  industrious  to  the  last  hour 
of  the  day,  though  we  add  the  gambler's 
fury  to  the  laborer's  patience;  we  are  still 
brave  to  the  death,  though  incapable  of  dis- 
cerning true  cause  for  battle;  and  are  still 
true  in  affection  to  our  own  flesh,  to  the 
death,  as  the  sea-monsters  are,  and  the 
rock-eagles.  And  there  is  hope  for  a  nation 
while  this  can  be  still  said  of  it.  As  long 
as  it  holds  its  life  in  its  hand,  ready  to  give 
it  for  its  honor  (though  a  foolish  honor),  for 
its  love  (though  a  selfish  love),  and  for  its 
business  (though  a  base  business),  there  is 
hope  for  it.  But  hope  only;  for  this  in- 
stinctive, reckless  virtue  cannot  last.  No 
47 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 


nation  can  last  which  has  made  a  mob  of 
itself,  however  generous  at  heart.  It  must 
discipline  its  passions,  and  direct  them,  or 
they  will  discipline  it,  one  day,  with  scor- 
pion whips.  Above  all,  a  nation  cannot  last 
as  a  money-making  mob:  it  cannot  with 
impunity,— it  cannot  with  existence,— go  on 
despising  literature,  despising  science,  de- 
spising art,  despising  nature,  despising  com- 
passion, and  concentrating  its  soul  on  Pence. 
Do  you  think  these  are  harsh  or  wild  words? 
Have  patience  with  me  but  a  little  longer. 
I  will  prove  their  truth  to  you,  clause  by 
clause. 

I.  I  say  first  we  have  despised  literature. 
What  do  we,  as  a  nation,  care  about  books? 
How  much  do  you  think  we  spend  alto- 
gether on  our  libraries,  public  or  private, 
as  compared  with  what  we  spend  on  our 
horses?  If  a  man  spends  lavishly  on  his 
library,  you  call  him  mad— a  bibliomaniac. 
But  you  never  call  any  one  a  horsemaniac, 
though  men  ruin  themselves  every  day  by 
their  horses,  and  you  do  not  hear  of  people 
ruining  themselves  by  their  books.  Or,  to 
go  lower  still,  how  much  do  you  think  the 
contents  of  the  book-shelves  of  the  United 
Kingdom,  public  and  private,  would  fetch, 
as  compared  with  the  contents  of  its  wine- 
cellars?  What  position  would  its  expendi- 
48 


OF   KINGS'  TREASURIES 

ture  on  literature  take,  as  compared  with 
its  expenditure  on  luxurious  eating?  We 
talk  of  food  for  the  mind,  as  of  food  for  the 
body:  now  a  good  book  contains  such  food 
inexhaustibly;  it  is  a  provision  for  life,  and 
for  the  best  part  of  us;  yet  how  long  most 
people  would  look  at  the  best  book  before 
they  would  give  the  price  of  a  large  turbot 
for  it!  Though  there  have  been  men  who 
have  pinched  their  stomachs  and  bared 
their  backs  to  buy  a  book,  whose  libraries 
were  cheaper  to  them,  I  think,  in  the  end, 
than  most  men's  dinners  are.  We  are  few 
of  us  put  to  such  trial,  and  more  the  pity; 
for,  indeed,  a  precious  thing  is  all  the  more 
precious  to  us  if  it  has  been  won  by  work  or 
economy;  and  if  public  libraries  were  half  so 
costly  as  public  dinners,  or  books  cost  the 
tenth  part  of  what  bracelets  do,  even  fool- 
ish men  and  women  might  sometimes  sus- 
pect there  was  good  in  reading,  as  well  as 
in  munching  and  sparkling:  whereas  the 
very  cheapness  of  literature  is  making  even 
wise  people  forget  that  if  a  book  is  worth 
reading,  it  is  worth  buying.  No  book  is 
worth  anything  which  is  not  worth  much  ; 
nor  is  it  serviceable  until  it  has  been  read, 
and  re-read,  and  loved,  and  loved  again;  and 
marked,  so  that  you  can  refer  to  the  pas- 
sages you  want  in  it,  as  a  soldier  can  seize 
4  49 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 


the  weapon  he  needs  in  an  armory,  or  a 
housewife  bring  the  spice  she  needs  from 
her  store.  Bread  of  flour  is  good;  but  there 
is  bread,  sweet  as  honey,  if  we  would  eat  it, 
in  a  good  book;  and  the  family  must  be  poor 
indeed  which,  once  in  their  lives,  cannot, 
for  such  multipliable  barley-loaves,  pay 
their  baker's  bill.  We  call  ourselves  a  rich 
nation,  and  we  are  filthy  and  foolish  enough 
to  thumb  each  other's  books  out  of  circu- 
lating libraries! 

II.  I  say  we  have  despised  science. 
"What!"  you  exclaim,  "are  we  not  fore- 
most in  all  discovery,1  and  is  not  the  whole 
world  giddy  by  reason,  or  unreason,  of  our 
inventions?  "  Yes;  but  do  you  suppose  that 
is  national  work?  That  work  is  all  done 
in  spite  of  the  nation;  by  private  people's 
zeal  and  money.  We  are  glad  enough, 
indeed,  to  make  our  profit  of  science;  we 
snap  up  anything  in  the  way  of  a  scientific 
bone  that  has  meat  on  it,  eagerly  enough; 
but  if  the  scientific  man  comes  for  a  bone 
or  a  crust  to  ws,  that  is  another  story. 
What  have  we  publicly  done  for  science? 
We  are  obliged  to  know  what  o'clock  it  is, 
for  the  safety  of  our  ships,  and  therefore 

1  Since  this  was  written,  the  answer  has  become  definitely— 
No ;  we  having  surrendered  the  field  of  Arctic  discovery  to 
the  Continental  nations,  as  being  ourselves  too  poor  to  pay 
for  ships. 

50 


OF   KINGS'   TREASURIES 

we  pay  for  an  observatory;  and  we  allow 
ourselves,  in  the  person  of  our  Parliament, 
to  be  annually  tormented  into  doing  some- 
thing, in  a  slovenly  way,  for  the  British 
Museum;  sullenly  apprehending  that  to  be 
a  place  for  keeping  stuffed  birds  in,  to  amuse 
our  children.  If  anybody  will  pay  for  their 
own  telescope,  and  resolve  another  nebula, 
we  cackle  over  the  discernment  as  if  it  were 
our  own;  if  one  in  ten  thousand  of  our  hunt- 
ing squires  suddenly  perceives  that  the 
earth  was  indeed  made  to  be  something  else 
than  a  portion  for  foxes,  and  burrows  in  it 
himself,  and  tells  us  where  the  gold  is,  and 
where  the  coals,  we  understand  that  there 
is  some  use  in  that,  and  very  properly 
knight  him;  but  is  the  accident  of  his  hav- 
ing found  out  how  to  employ  himself  use- 
fully any  credit  to  us  ?  (The  negation  of 
such  discovery  among  his  brother  squires 
may  perhaps  be  some  discredit  to  us,  if  we 
would  consider  of  it.)  But  if  you  doubt 
these  generalities,  here  is  one  fact  for  us 
all  to  meditate  upon,  illustrative  of  our  love 
of  science.  Two  years  ago  there  was  a  col- 
lection of  the  fossils  of  Solnhofen  to  be 
sold  in  Bavaria;  the  best  in  existence,  con- 
taining many  specimens  unique  for  perfect- 
ness,  and  one  unique  as  an  example  of  a 
species  (a  whole  kingdom  of  unknown  liv- 
51 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


ing  creatures  being  announced  by  that  fos- 
sil). This  collection,  of  which  the  mere 
market  worth,  among  private  buyers,  would 
probably  have  been  some  thousand  or 
twelve  hundred  pounds,  was  offered  to  the 
English  nation  for  seven  hundred:  but  we 
would  not  give  seven  hundred,  and  the 
whole  series  would  have  been  in  the  Munich 
Museum  at  this  moment,  if  Professor  Owen : 
had  not,  with  loss  of  his  own  time,  and  pa- 
tient tormenting  of  the  British  public  in 
person  of  its  representatives,  got  leave  to 
give  four  hundred  pounds  at  once,  and  him- 
self become  answerable  for  the  other  three! 
which  the  said  public  will  doubtless  pay  him 
eventually,  but  sulkily,  and  caring  nothing 
about  the  matter  all  the  while;  only  always 
ready  to  cackle  if  any  credit  comes  of  it. 
Consider,  I  beg  of  you,  arithmetically,  what 
this  fact  means.  Your  annual  expenditure 
for  public  purposes  (a  third  of  it  for  mili- 
tary apparatus)  is  at  least  fifty  millions. 
Now  £700  is  to  £50,000,000,  roughly,  as  seven- 
pence  to  two  thousand  pounds.  Suppose, 
then,  a  gentleman  of  unknown  income,  but 
whose  wealth  was  to  be  conjectured  from 

1  I  state  this  fact  without  Professor  Owen's  permission ;  which 
of  course  he  could  not  with  propriety  have  granted,  had  I 
asked  it ;  but  I  consider  it  so  important  that  the  public  should 
be  aware  of  the  fact,  that  I  do  what  seems  to  me  right,  though 
rude. 

52 


OF   KINGS'   TREASURIES 

the  fact  that  he  spent  two  thousand  a  year 
on  his  park  walls  and  footmen  only,  pro- 
fesses himself  fond  of  science;  and  that  one 
of  his  servants  comes  eagerly  to  tell  him 
that  an  unique  collection  of  fossils,  giving 
clue  to  a  new  era  of  creation,  is  to  be  had 
for  the  sum  of  sevenpence  sterling;  and 
that  the  gentleman  who  is  fond  of  science, 
and  spends  two  thousand  a  year  on  his 
park,  answers,  after  keeping  his  servant 
waiting  several  months,  "Well!  I'll  give 
you  fourpence  for  them,  if  you  will  be  an- 
swerable for  the  extra  threepence  yourself, 
till  next  year!" 

III.  I  say  you  have  despised  Art!  "What!" 
you  again  answer,  "have  we  not  Art  ex- 
hibitions, miles  long?  and  do  we  not  pay 
thousands  of  pounds  for  single  pictures? 
and  have  we  not  Art  schools  and  insti- 
tutions, more  than  ever  nation  had  be- 
fore? "  Yes,  truly,  but  all  that  is  for  the 
sake  of  the  shop.  You  would  fain  sell  can- 
vas as  well  as  coals,  and  crockery  as  well  as 
iron;  you  would  take  every  other  nation's 
bread  out  of  its  mouth  if  you  could;1  not 
being  able  to  do  that,  your  ideal  of  life  is  to 
stand  in  the  thoroughfares  of  the  world, 

1  That  was  our  real  idea  of  "Free  Trade  "  —  "All  the  trade 
to  myself."  You  find  now  that  by  "  competition  "  other  peo- 
ple can  manage  to  sell  something  as  well  as  you — and  now 
we  call  for  Protection  again.  Wretches ! 

53 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


like  Ludgate  apprentices,  screaming  to 
every  passer-by,  "What  d'  ye  lack?"  You 
know  nothing  of  your  own  faculties  or  cir- 
cumstances; you  fancy  that,  among  your 
damp,  flat,  fat  fields  of  clay,  you  can  have 
as  quick  art-fancy  as  the  Frenchman  among 
his  bronzed  vines,  or  the  Italian  under  his 
volcanic  cliffs;— that  Art  may  be  learned, 
as  bookkeeping  is,  and  when  learned,  will 
give  you  more  books  to  keep.  You  care 
for  pictures,  absolutely,  no  more  than  you 
do  for  the  bills  pasted  on  your  dead  walls. 
There  is  always  room  on  the  walls  for  the 
bills  to  be  read,— never  for  the  pictures  to 
be  seen.  You  do  not  know  what  pictures 
you  have  (by  repute)  in  the  country,  nor 
whether  they  are  false  or  true,  nor  whether 
they  are  taken  care  of  or  not;  in  foreign 
countries,  you  calmly  see  the  noblest  exist- 
ing pictures  in  the  world  rotting  in  aban- 
doned wreck— (in  Venice  you  saw  the 
Austrian  guns  deliberately  pointed  at  the 
palaces  containing  them),  and  if  you  heard 
that  all  the  fine  pictures  in  Europe  were 
made  into  sand-bags  to-morrow  on  the 
Austrian  forts,  it  would  not  trouble  you  so 
much  as  the  chance  of  a  brace  or  two  of 
game  less  in  your  own  bags,  in  a  day's  shoot- 
ing. That  is  your  national  love  of  Art. 
IV.  You  have  despised  Nature;  that  is  to 
54 


OF   KINGS'   TREASURIES 

say,  all  the  deep  and  sacred  sensations 
of  natural  scenery.  The  French  revolu- 
tionists made  stables  of  the  cathedrals  of 
France;  you  have  made  race-courses  of  the 
cathedrals  of  the  earth.  Your  one  concep- 
tion of  pleasure  is  to  drive  in  railroad-car- 
riages round  their  aisles,  and  eat  off  their 
altars.1  You  have  put  a  railroad-bridge 
over  the  falls  of  Schaffhausen;  you  have 
tunneled  the  cliffs  of  Lucerne  by  Tell's 
chapel;  you  have  destroyed  the  Clarens 
shore  of  the  Lake  of  Geneva;  there  is  not  a 
quiet  valley  in  England  that  you  have  not 
filled  with  bellowing  fire;  there  is  no  parti- 
cle left  of  English  land  which  you  have  not 
trampled  coal  ashes  into2— nor  any  foreign 
city  in  which  the  spread  of  your  presence  is 
not  marked  among  its  fair  old  streets  and 
happy  gardens  by  a  consuming  white  lep- 
rosy of  new  hotels  and  perfumers'  shops: 
the  Alps  themselves,  which  your  own  poets 
used  to  love  so  reverently,  you  look  upon 
as  soaped  poles  in  a  bear-garden,  which 
you  set  yourselves  to  climb  and  slide  down 

1  I  meant  that  the  beautiful  places  of  the  world  —  Switzer- 
land, Italy,  South  Germany,  and  so  on  — are,  indeed,  the 
truest  cathedrals— places  to  be  reverent  in,  and  to  worship 
in ;  and  that  we  only  care  to  drive  through  them,  and  to  eat 
and  drink  at  their  most  sacred  places.  2  I  was  singularly 
struck,  some  years  ago,  by  finding  all  the  river  shore  at 
Richmond,  in  Yorkshire,  black  in  its  earth,  from  the  mere 
drift  of  soot-laden  air  from  places  many  miles  away. 

55 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


again,  with  "shrieks  of  delight."  When 
you  are  past  shrieking,  having  no  human 
articulate  voice  to  say  you  are  glad  with, 
you  fill  the  quietude  of  their  valleys  with 
gunpowder  blasts,  and' rush  home,  red  with 
cutaneous  eruption  of  conceit,  and  voluble 
with  convulsive  hiccough  of  self-satisfac- 
tion. I  think  nearly  the  two  sorrowfulest 
spectacles  I  have  ever  seen  in  humanity, 
taking  the  deep  inner  significance  of  them, 
are  the  English  mobs  in  the  valley  of  Cha- 
monix,  amusing  themselves  with  firing 
rusty  howitzers;  and  the  Swiss  vintagers  of 
Zurich,  expressing  their  Christian  thanks 
for  the  gift  of  the  vine,  by  assembling  in 
knots  in  the  "  towers  of  the  vineyards,"  and 
slowly  loading  and  firing  horse-pistols  from 
morning  till  evening.  It  is  pitiful  to  have 
dim  conceptions  of  duty;  more  pitiful,  it 
seems  to  me,  to  have  conceptions  like  these, 
of  mirth. 

Lastly.  You  despise  compassion.  There 
is  no  need  of  words  of  mine  for  proof  of 
this.  I  will  merely  print  one  of  the  news- 
paper paragraphs  which  I  am  in  the  habit 
of  cutting  out  and  throwing  into  my  store- 
drawer;  here  is  one  from  a  "Daily  Tele- 
graph" of  an  early  date  this  year  (1867); 
(date  which,  though  by  me  carelessly  left 
unmarked,  is  easily  discoverable;  for  on  the 
56 


OF   KINGS'  TREASURIES 

back  of  the  slip  there  is  the  announcement 
that  "  yesterday  the  seventh  of  the  special 
services  of  this  year  was  performed  by  the 
Bishop  of  Ripon  in  St.  Paul's";)  it  relates 
only  one  of  such  facts  as  happen  now  daily; 
this  by  chance  having  taken  a  form  in 
which  it  came  before  the  coroner.  I  will 
print  the  paragraph  in  red.  Be  sure,  the 
facts  themselves  are  written  in  that  color, 
in  a  book  which  we  shall  all  of  us,  literate 
or  illiterate,  have  to  read  our  page  of,  some 
day. 

1An  inquiry  was  held  on  Friday  by  Mr. 
Richards,  deputy  coroner,  at  the  White 
Horse  Tavern,  Christ  Church,  Spitalfields, 
respecting  the  death  of  Michael  Collins, 
aged  58  years.  Mary  Collins,  a  miserable- 
looking  woman,  said  that  she  lived  with  the 
deceased  and  his  son  in  a  room  at  2,  Cobb's 
Court,  Christ  Church.  Deceased  was  a 
"  translator  "  of  boots.  Witness  went  out 
and  bought  old  boots;  deceased  and  his  son 
made  them  into  good  ones,  and  then  wit- 
ness sold  them  for  what  she  could  get  at 
the  shops,  which  was  very  little  indeed. 
Deceased  and  his  son  used  to  work  night 
and  day  to  try  and  get  a  little  bread  and 
tea,  and  pay  for  the  room  (2s.  a  week),  so  as 
to  keep  the  home  together.  On  Friday- 

i  This  paragraph  was  printed  in  red  in  the  original  edition. 

57 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


night-week  deceased  got  up  from  his  bench 
and  began  to  shiver.  He  threw  down  the 
boots,  saying,  "Somebody  else  must  finish 
them  when  I  am  gone,  for  I  can  do  no  more." 
There  was  no  fire,  and  he  said,  "  I  would  be 
better  if  I  was  warm."  Witness  therefore 
took  two  pairs  of  translated  boots l  to  sell 
at  the  shop,  but  she  could  only  get  14d.  for 
the  two  pairs,  for  the  people  at  the  shop 
said,  "  We  must  have  our  profit."  Witness 
got  14  Ib.  of  coal,  and  a  little  tea  and  bread. 
Her  son  sat  up  the  whole  night  to  make  the 
"  translations,"  to  get  money,  but  deceased 
died  on  Saturday  morning.  The  family 
never  had  enough  to  eat.— Coroner:  "It 
seems  to  me  deplorable  that  you  did  not 
go  into  the  workhouse."  Witness:  "We 
wanted  the  comforts  of  our  little  home." 
A  juror  asked  what  the  comforts  were,  for 
he  only  saw  a  little  straw  in  the  corner  of 
the  room,  the  windows  of  which  were  broken. 
The  witness  began  to  cry,  and  said  that 
they  had  a  quilt  and  other  little  things. 
The  deceased  said  he  never  would  go  into 
the  workhouse.  In  summer,  when  the  sea- 
son was  good,  they  sometimes  made  as 
much  as  10s.  profit  in  the  week.  They  then 

1  One  of  the  things  which  we  must  very  resolutely  enforce, 
for  the  good  of  all  classes,  in  our  future  arrangements,  must 
be  that  they  wear  no  "  translated  "  articles  of  dress.  See  the 
preface. 

58 


OF  KINGS'  TREASURIES 

always  saved  towards  the  next  week,  which 
was  generally  a  bad  one.  In  winter  they 
made  not  half  so  much.  For  three  years 
they  had  been  getting  from  bad  to  worse. 
—Cornelius  Collins  said  that  he  had  as- 
sisted his  father  since  1847.  They  used  to 
work  so  far  into  the  night  that  both  nearly 
lost  their  eyesight.  Witness  now  had  a 
film  over  his  eyes.  Five  years  ago  deceased 
applied  to  the  parish  for  aid.  The  relieving 
officer  gave  him  a  4-lb.  loaf,  and  told  him  if 
he  came  again  he  should  "  get  the  stones." l 
That  disgusted  deceased,  and  he  would  have 
nothing  to  do  with  them  since.  They  got 
worse  and  worse  until  last  Friday  week, 
when  they  had  not  even  a  halfpenny  to  buy 
a  candle.  Deceased  then  lay  down  on  the 
straw,  and  said  he  could  not  live  till  morn- 
ing.—A  juror:  "You  are  dying  of  starvation 

i  This  abbreviation  of  the  penalty  of  useless  labor  is  curi- 
ously coincident  in  verbal  form  with  a  certain  passage  which 
some  of  us  may  remember.  It  may  perhaps  be  well  to  pre- 
serve beside  this  paragraph  another  cutting  out  of  my  store- 
drawer,  from  the  "  Morning  Post,"  of  about  a  parallel  date, 

Friday,  March  10,  1865:    "The   salons   of  Mme.  C ,  who 

did  the  honors  with  clever  imitative  grace  and  elegance, 
were  crowded  with  princes,  dukes,  marquises,  and  counts  — 
in  fact,  with  the  same  male  company  as  one  meets  at  the 
parties  of  the  Princess  Metternich  and  Madame  Drouyn  de 
Lhuys.  Some  English  peers  and  members  of  Parliament 
were  present,  and  appeared  to  enjoy  the  animated  and 
dazzlingly  improper  scene.  On  the  second  floor  the  supper- 
tables  were  loaded  with  every  delicacy  of  the  season.  That 
your  readers  may  form  some  idea  of  the  dainty  fare  of  the 
Parisian  demi-monde,  I  copy  the  menu  of  the  supper,  which 

59 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


yourself,  and  you  ought  to  go  into  the  house 
until  the  summer."— Witness:  "If  we  went 
in  we  should  die.  When  we  come  out  in 
the  summer  we  should  be  like  people 
dropped  from  the  sky.  No  one  would  know 
us,  and  we  would  not  have  even  a  room.  I 
could  work  now  if  I  had  food,  for  my  sight 
would  get  better."  Dr.  G.  P.  Walker  said 
deceased  died  from  syncope,  from  exhaus- 
tion from  want  of  food.  The  deceased  had 
had  no  bedclothes.  For  four  months  he  had 
had  nothing  but  bread  to  eat.  There  was 
not  a  particle  of  fat  in  the  body.  There 
was  no  disease,  but,  if  there  had  been  medi- 
cal attendance,  he  might  have  survived  the 
syncope  or  fainting.  The  Coroner  having 
remarked  upon  the  painful  nature  of  the 
case,  the  jury  returned  the  following  ver- 
dict: "That  deceased  died  from  exhaustion 
from  want  of  food  and  the  common  neces- 

was  served  to  all  the  guests  (about  200)  seated  at  four  o'clock. 
Choice  Yquem,  Johannisberg,  Laffltte,  Tokay,  and  cham- 
pagne of  the  finest  vintages  were  served  most  lavishly 
throughout  the  morning.  After  supper  dancing  was  resumed 
with  increased  animation,  and  the  ball  terminated  with  a 
chatne  diabolique  and  a  cancan  d'enfer  at  seven  in  the  morn- 
ing. (Morning service— 'Ere  the  fresh  lawns  appeared, 
under  the  opening  eyelids  of  the  Morn.—  ')  Here  is  the 
menu:  'Consommg  de  volaille  a  la  Bagration:  16  hors- 
d'oeuvres  varies.  Bouche'es  a  la  Talleyrand.  Saumons  froids, 
sauce  Ravigote.  Filets  de  bceuf  en  Bellevue,  timbales  mil.i- 
naises,  chaudfroid  de  gibier.  Dindes  truffdes.  Pates  de  foies 
gras,  buissons  d'ecrevisses,  salades  vengtiennes,  gelfies 
blanches  aux  fruits,  gateaux  mancini,  parisiens  et  parisi- 
ennes.  Fromages glaces.  Ananas.  Dessert.'" 

60 


OF   KINGS'   TREASURIES 

saries  of  life;  also  through  want  of  medical 
aid." 

"Why  would  witness  not  go  into  the 
workhouse?  "  you  ask.  Well,  the  poor  seem 
to  have  a  prejudice  against  the  workhouse 
which  the  rich  have  not;  for  of  course 
every  one  who  takes  a  pension  from  Govern- 
ment goes  into  the  workhouse  on  a  grand 
scale: l  only  the  workhouses  for  the  rich  do 
not  involve  the  idea  of  work,  and  should  be 
called  playhouses.  But  the  poor  like  to  die 
independently,  it  appears;  perhaps  if  we 
made  the  playhouses  for  them  pretty  and 
pleasant  enough,  or  gave  them  their  pen- 
sions at  home,  and  allowed  them  a  little 
introductory  peculation  with  the  public 
money,  their  minds  might  be  reconciled  to 
the  conditions.  Meantime,  here  are  the 
facts:  we  make  our  relief  either  so  insulting 
to  them,  or  so  painful,  that  they  rather  die 
than  take  it  at  our  hands;  or,  for  third 
alternative,  we  leave  them  so  untaught  and 
foolish  that  they  starve  like  brute  creatures, 
wild  and  dumb,  not  knowing  what  to  do,  or 
what  to  ask.  I  say,  you  despise  compas- 
sion; if  you  did  not,  such  a  newspaper  para- 
graph would  be  as  impossible  in  a  Christian 

1  Please  observe  this  statement,  and  think  of  it,  and  consider 
how  it  happens  that  a  poor  old  woman  will  be  ashamed  to 
take  a  shilling  a  week  from  the  country  — but  no  one  is 
ashamed  to  take  a  pension  of  a  thousand  a  year. 

61 


SESAME  AND  LILIES 


country  as  a  deliberate  assassination  per- 
mitted in  its  public  streets.1  "Christian/' 
did  I  say?  Alas!  if  we  were  but  whole- 
somely im-Christian,  it  would  be  impossi- 
ble: it  is  our  imaginary  Christianity  that 
helps  us  to  commit  these  crimes,  for  we 
revel  and  luxuriate  in  our  faith,  for  the 
lewd  sensation  of  it;  dressing  it  up,  like 
everything  else,  in  fiction.  The  dramatic 
Christianity  of  the  organ  and  aisle,  of  dawn- 
service  and  twilight-revival— the  Christian- 
ity which  we  do  not  fear  to  mix  the  mock- 
ery of,  pictorially,  with  our  play  about  the 
devil,  in  our  Satanellas,— Roberts,— Fausts; 
chanting  hymns  through  traceried  windows 
for  background  effect,  and  artistically  mod- 


1 1  am  heartily  glad  to  see  such  a  paper  as  the  "  Pall  Mall 
Gazette  "  established ;  for  the  power  of  the  press  in  the  hands 
of  highly  educated  men,  in  independent  position,  and  of 
honest  purpose,  may  indeed  become  all  that  it  has  been 
hitherto  vainly  vaunted  to  be.  Its  editor  will  therefore,  I 
doubt  not,  pardon  me,  in  that,  by  very  reason  of  my  respect 
for  the  journal,  I  do  not  let  pass  unnoticed  an  article  in  its 
third  number,  page  5,  which  was  wrong  in  every  word  of  it, 
with  the  intense  wrongness  which  only  an  honest  man  can 
achieve  who  has  taken  a  false  turn  of  thought  in  the  outset, 
and  is  following  it,  regardless  of  consequences.  It  contained 
at  the  end  this  notable  passage : 

"The  bread  of  affliction,  and  the  water  of  affliction, — aye, 
and  the  bedsteads  and  blankets  of  affliction,  are  the  very 
utmost  that  the  law  ought  to  give  to  outcasts,  merely  as 
outcasts."  I  merely  put  beside  this  expression  of  the  gentle- 
manly mind  of  England  in  1865  a  part  of  the  message  which 
Isaiah  was  ordered  to  "lift  up  his  voice  like  a  trumpet"  in 
declaring  to  the  gentlemen  of  his  day:  "Ye  fast  for  strife, 
and  to  smite  with  the  fist  of  wickedness.  Is  not  this  the  fast 

62 


OF   KINGS'  TREASURIES 

ulating  the  "Dio"  through  variation  on 
variation  of  mimicked  prayer  (while  we 
distribute  tracts,  next  day,  for  the  benefit 
of  uncultivated  swearers,  upon  what  we 
suppose  to  be  the  signification  of  the  Third 
Commandment);—  this  gas-lighted  and 
gas-inspired  Christianity  we  are  trium- 
phant in,  and  draw  back  the  hem  of  our 
robes  from  the  touch  of  the  heretics  who 
dispute  it.  But  to  do  a  piece  of  common 
Christian  righteousness  in  a  plain  English 
word  or  deed;  to  make  Christian  law  any 
rule  of  life,  and  found  one  National  act  or 
hope  thereon,— we  know  too  well  what  our 
faith  comes  to  for  that!  You  might  sooner 
get  lightning  out  of  incense^smoke  than 
true  action  or  passion  out  of  your  modern 

that  I  have  chosen,  to  deal  thy  bread  to  the  hungry,  and 
that  thou  bring  the  poor  that  are  cast  out  (margin, '  afflicted  ') 
to  thy  house?"  The  falsehood  on  which  the  writer  had 
mentally  founded  himself,  as  previously  stated  by  him,  was 
this:  "To  confound  the  functions  of  the  dispensers  of  the 
poor-rates  with  those  of  the  dispensers  of  a  charitable  institu- 
tion is  a  great  and  pernicious  error."  This  sentence  is  so 
accurately  .and  exquisitely  wrong  that  its  substance  must  be 
thus  reversed  in  our  minds  before  we  can  deal  with  any 
existing  problem  of  national  distress.  "  To  understand  that 
the  dispensers  of  the  poor-rates  are  the  almoners  of  the 
nation,  and  should  distribute  its  alms  with  a  gentleness  and 
freedom  of  hand  as  much  greater  and  franker  than  that 
possible  to  individual  charity  as  the  collective  national  wis- 
dom and  power  may  be  supposed  greater  than  those  of  any 
single  person,  is  the  foundation  of  all  law  respecting  pauper- 
ism." (Since  this  was  written  the  "Pall  Mall  Gazette"  has 
become  a  mere  party  paper — like  the  rest ;  but  it  writes  well, 
and  does  more  good  than  mischief  on  the  whole.) 

63 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


English  religion.  You  had  better  get  rid  of 
the  smoke  and  the  organ-pipes,  both:  leave 
them,  and  the  Gothic  windows,  and  the 
painted  glass,  to  the  property-man;  give  up 
your  carbureted-hydrogen  ghost  in  one 
healthy  expiration,  and  look  after  Lazarus 
at  the  door-step.  For  there  is  a  true  Church 
wherever  one  hand  meets  another  help- 
fully, and  that  is  the  only  holy  or  Mother 
Church  which  ever  was,  or  ever  shall  be. 

All  these  pleasures  then,  and  all  these 
virtues,  I  repeat,  you  nationally  despise. 
You  have,  indeed,  men  among  you  who  do 
not;  by  whose  work,  by  whose  strength,  by 
whose  life,  by  whose  death,  you  live,  and 
never  thank  them.  Your  wealth,  your 
amusement,  your  pride,  would  all  be  alike 
impossible,  but  for  those  whom  you  scorn 
or  forget.  The  policeman,  who  is  walking 
up  and  down  the  black  lane  all  night  to 
watch  the  guilt  you  have  created  there,  and 
may  have  his  brains  beaten  out,  and  be 
maimed  for  life,  at  any  moment,  and  never 
be  thanked;  the  sailor  wrestling  with  the 
sea's  rage;  the  quiet  student  poring  over 
his  book  or  his  vial;  the  common  worker, 
without  praise,  and  nearly  without  bread, 
fulfilling  his  task  as  your  horses  drag  your 
carts,  hopeless,  and  spurned  of  all:  these 
are  the  men  by  whom  England  lives;  but 
64 


OF   KINGS'  TREASURIES 

they  are  not  the  nation;  they  are  only  the 
hody  and  nervous  force  of  it,  acting  still 
from  old  habit  in  a  convulsive  perseverance, 
while  the  mind  is  gone.  Our  National  wish 
and  purpose  are  only  to  be  amused;  our  Na- 
tional religion  is  the  performance  of  church 
ceremonies,  and  preaching  of  soporific  truth 
(or  untruths)  to  keep  the  mob  quietly  at 
work,  while  we  amuse  ourselves;  and  the 
necessity  for  this  amusement  is  fastening 
on  us,  as  a  feverous  disease  of  parched 
throat  and  wandering  eyes— senseless,  dis- 
solute, merciless.  How  literally  that  word 
Dis-Ease,  the  Negation  and  impossibility  of 
Ease,  expresses  the  entire  moral  state  of 
our  English  Industry  and  its  Amusements! 
When  men  are  rightly  occupied,  their 
amusement  grows  out  of  their  work,  as  the 
color-petals  out  of  a  fruitful  flower; — when 
they  are  faithfully  helpful  and  compassion- 
ate, all  their  emotions  become  steady,  deep, 
perpetual,  and  vivifying  to  the  soul  as  the 
natural  pulse  to  the  body.  But  now,  hav- 
ing no  true  business,  we  pour  our  whole 
masculine  energy  into  the  false  business  of 
money-making;  and  having  no  true  emo- 
tion, we  must  have  false  emotions  dressed 
up  for  us  to  play  with,  not  innocently,  as 
children  with  dolls,  but  guiltily  and  darkly, 
as  the  idolatrous  Jews  with  their  pictures 
5  65 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 


on  cavern  walls,  which  men  had  to  dig  to 
detect.  The  justice  we  do  not  execute,  we 
mimic  in  the  novel  and  on  the  stage;  for 
the  beauty  we  destroy  in  nature,  we  sub- 
stitute the  metamorphosis  of  the  panto- 
mime, and  (the  human  nature  of  us  impera- 
tively requiring  awe  and  sorrow  of  some 
kind)  for  the  noble  grief  we  should  have 
borne  with  our  fellows,  and  the  pure  tears 
we  should  have  wept  with  them,  we  gloat 
over  the  pathos  of  the  police  court,  and 
gather  the  night-dew  of  the  grave. 

It  is  difficult  to  estimate  the  true  signifi- 
cance of  these  things;  the  facts  are  fright- 
ful enough;— the  measure  of  national  fault 
involved  in  them  is  perhaps  not  as  great  as 
it  would  at  first  seem.  We  permit,  or  cause, 
thousands  of  deaths  daily,  but  we  mean  no 
harm;  we  set  fire  to  houses,  and  ravage 
peasants'  fields,  yet  we  should  be  sorry  to 
find  we  had  injured  anybody.  We  are  still 
kind  at  heart;  still  capable  of  virtue,  but 
only  as  children  are.  Chalmers,  at  the  end 
of  his  long  life,  having  had  much  power 
with  the  public,  being  plagued  in  some  seri- 
ous matter  by  a  reference  to  "public  opin- 
ion," uttered  the  impatient  exclamation, 
"The  public  is  just  a  great  baby!"  And 
the  reason  that  I  have  allowed  all  these 
graver  subjects  of  thought  to  mix  them- 
66 


OF   KINGS'  TREASURIES 


selves  up  with  an  inquiry  into  methods  of 
reading  is  that,  the  more  I  see  of  our  na- 
tional faults  or  miseries,  the  more  they 
resolve  themselves  into  conditions  of  child- 
ish illiterateness  and  want  of  education  in 
the  most  ordinary  habits  of  thought.  It 
is,  I  repeat,  not  vice,  not  selfishness,  not 
dullness  of  brain,  which  we  have  to  lament; 
but  an  unreachable  school-boy's  reckless- 
ness, only  differing  from  the  true  school- 
boy's in  its  incapacity  of  being  helped,  be- 
cause it  acknowledges  no  master. 

There  is  a  curious  type  of  us  given  in  one 
of  the  lovely,  neglected  works  of  the  last 
of  our  great  painters.  It  is  a  drawing  of 
Kirkby  Lonsdale  churchyard,  and  of  its 
brook,  and  valley,  and  hills,  and  folded 
morning  sky  beyond.  And  unmindful  alike 
of  these,  and  of  the  dead  who  have  left 
these  for  other  valleys  and  for  other  skies, 
a  group  of  school-boys  have  piled  their  little 
books  upon  a  grave,  to  strike  them  off  with 
stones.  So,  also,  we  play  with  the  words  of 
the  dead  that  would  teach  us,  and  strike 
them  far  from  us  with  our  bitter,  reckless 
will ;  little  thinking  that  those  leaves  which 
the  wind  scatters  had  been  piled,  not  only 
upon  a  gravestone,  but  upon  the  seal  of  an 
enchanted  vault— nay,  the  gate  of  a  great 
city  of  sleeping  kings,  who  would  awake  for 
67 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


us  and  walk  with  us,  if  we  knew  but  how  to 
call  them  by  their  names.  How  often,  even 
if  we  lift  the  marble  entrance-gate,  do  we 
but  wander  among  those  old  kings  in  their 
repose,  and  finger  the  robes  they  lie  in,  and 
stir  the  crowns  on  their  foreheads;  and  still 
they  are  silent  to  us,  and  seem  but  a  dusty 
imagery;  because  we  know  not  the  incan- 
tation of  the  heart  that  would  wake  them; 
—which,  if  they  once  heard,  they  would 
start  up  to  meet  us  in  their  power  of  long 
ago,  narrowly  to  look  upon  us  and  consider 
us;  and,  as  the  fallen  kings  of  Hades  meet 
the  newly  fallen,  saying,  "Art  thou  also 
become  weak  as  we— art  thou  also  become 
one  of  us?"  so  would  these  kings,  with 
their  undimmed,  unshaken  diadems,  meet 
us,  saying,  "  Art  thou  also  become  pure  and 
mighty  of  heart  as  we— art  thou  also  be- 
come one  of  us?  " 

Mighty  of  heart,  mighty  of  mind— "mag- 
nanimous "—to  be  this,  is  indeed  to  be  great 
in  life;  to  become  this  increasingly,  is  in- 
deed to  "advance  in  life,"— in  life  itself— 
not  in  the  trappings  of  it.  My  friends,  do 
you  remember  that  old  Scythian  custom, 
when  the  head  of  a  house  died?  How  he 
was  dressed  in  his  finest  dress,  and  set  in 
his  chariot,  and  carried  about  to  his  friends' 
houses;  and  each  of  them  placed  him  at  his 
68 


OF   KINGS'   TREASURIES 

table's  head,  and  all  feasted  in  his  presence? 
Suppose  it  were  offered  to  you  in  plain 
words,  as  it  is  offered  to  you  in  dire  facts, 
that  you  should  gain  this  Scythian  honor, 
gradually,  while  you  yet  thought  yourself 
alive.  Suppose  the  offer  were  this:  You 
shall  die  slowly;  your  blood  shall  daily  grow 
cold,  your  flesh  petrify,  your  heart  beat  at 
last  only  as  a  rusted  group  of  iron  valves. 
Your  life  shall  fade  from  you,  and  sink 
through  the  earth  into  the  ice  of  Caina;  but, 
day  by  day,  your  body  shall  be  dressed  more 
gaily,  and  set  in  higher  chariots,  and  have 
more  orders  on  its  breast— crowns  on  its 
head,  if  you  will.  Men  shall  bow  before  it, 
stare  and  shout  round  it,  crowd  after  it  up 
and  down  the  streets;  build  palaces  for  it, 
feast  with  it  at  their  tables'  heads  all  the 
night  long;  your  soul  shall  stay  enough 
within  it  to  know  what  they  do,  and  feel  the 
weight  of  the  golden  dress  on  its  shoulders, 
and  the  furrow  of  the  crown-edge  on  the 
skull ;— no  more.  Would  you  take  the  offer, 
verbally  made  by  the  death-angel?  Would 
the  meanest  among  us  take  it,  think  you? 
Yet  practically  and  verily  we  grasp  at  it, 
every  one  of  us,  in  a  measure;  many  of  us 
grasp  at  it  in  its  fullness  of  horror.  Every 
man  accepts  it  who  desires  to  advance  in 
life  without  knowing  what  life  is;  who 
69 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


means  only  that  he  is  to  get  more  horses, 
and  more  footmen,  and  more  fortune,  and 
more  public  honor,  and— no  t  more  personal 
soul.  He  only  is  advancing  in  life  whose 
heart  is  getting  softer,  whose  blood  warmer, 
whose  brain  quicker,  whose  spirit  is  enter- 
ing into  Living l  peace.  And  the  men  who 
have  this  life  in  them  are  the  true  lords  or 
kings  of  the  earth— they,  and  they  only. 
All  other  kingships,  so  far  as  they  are  true, 
are  only  the  practical  issue  and  expression 
of  theirs;  if  less  than  this,  they  are  either 
dramatic  royalties,— costly  shows,  set  off, 
indeed,  with  real  jewels,  instead  of  tinsel- 
but  still  only  the  toys  of  nations;  or  else 
they  are  no  royalties  at  all,  but  tyrannies, 
or  the  mere  active  and  practical  issue  of 
national  folly;  for  which  reason  I  have  said 
of  them  elsewhere,  "Visible  governments 
are  the  toys  of  some  nations,  the  diseases 
of  others,  the  harness  of  some,  the  burdens 
of  more." 

But  I  have  no  words  for  the  wonder  with 
which  I  hear  Kinghood  still  spoken  of,  even 
among  thoughtful  men,  as  if  governed  na- 
tions were  a  personal  property,  and  might 
be  bought  and  sold,  or  otherwise  acquired, 
as  sheep,  of  whose  flesh  their  king  was  to 
feed,  and  whose  fleece  he  was  to  gather;  as 

1  "  TO  Si  ifipovritia.  TOU  TrvtiijxoTOS  f«»)  «ai  tip^vrf." 

70 


OP   KINGS'   TREASURIES 

if  Achilles'  indignant  epithet  of  base  kings, 
"people-eating,"  were  the  constant  and 
proper  title  of  all  monarchs;  and  the  en- 
largement of  a  king's  dominion  meant  the 
same  thing  as  the  increase  of  a  private 
man's  estate!  Kings  who  think  so,  how- 
ever powerful,  can  no  more  be  the  true 
kings  of  the  nation  than  gadflies  are  the 
kings  of  a  horse;  they  suck  it,  and  may  drive 
it  wild,  but  do  not  guide  it.  They,  and  their 
courts,  and  their  armies  are,  if  one  could 
see  clearly,  only  a  large  species  of  marsh- 
mosquito,  with  bayonet  proboscis  and  melo- 
dious, band-mastered  trumpeting,  in  the 
summer  air;  the  twilight  being,  perhaps, 
sometimes  fairer,  but  hardly  more  whole- 
some, for  its  glittering  mists  of  midge  com- 
panies. The  true  kings,  meanwhile,  rule 
quietly,  if  at  all,  and  hate  ruling;  too  many 
of  them  make  "il  gran  rifiuto  ";  and  if  they 
do  not,  the  mob,  as  soon  as  they  are  likely 
to  become  useful  to  it,  is  pretty  sure  to 
make  its  "  gran  rifiuto  "  of  them. 

Yet  the  visible  king  may  also  be  a  true 
one,  some  day,  if  ever  day  comes  when  he 
will  estimate  his  dominion  by  the  force  of 
it,— not  the  geographical  boundaries.  It 
matters  very  little  whether  Trent  cuts  you 
a  cantle  out  here,  or  Rhine  rounds  you  a 
castle  less  there.  But  it  does  matter  to 
71 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 


you,  king  of  men,  whether  you  can  verily 
say  to  this  man,  "Go,"  and  he  goeth;  and 
to  another,  "Come,"  and  he  cometh. 
Whether  you  can  turn  your  people,  as  you 
can  Trent— and  where  it  is  that  you  bid 
them  come,  and  where  go.  It  matters  to 
you,  king  of  men,  whether  your  people  hate 
you,  and  die  by  you,  or  love  you,  and  live  by 
you.  You  may  measure  your  dominion  by 
multitudes,  better  than  by  miles;  and  count 
degrees  of  love-latitude,  not  from,  but  to, 
a  wonderfully  warm  and  infinite  equator. 

Measure!— nay,  you  cannot  measure. 
Who  shall  measure  the  difference  between 
the  power  of  those  who  "  do  and  teach,"  and 
who  are  greatest  in  the  kingdoms  of  earth, 
as  of  heaven— and  the  power  of  those  who 
undo  and  consume— whose  power,  at  the 
fullest,  is  only  the  power  of  the  moth  and 
the  rust?  Strange!  to  think  how  the  Moth- 
kings  lay  up  treasures  for  the  moth;  and 
the  Rust-kings,  who  are  to  their  peoples' 
strength  as  rust  to  armor,  lay  up  treasures 
for  the  rust;  and  the  Robber-kings,  trea- 
sures for  the  robber;  but  how  few  kings 
have  ever  laid  up  treasures  that  needed  no 
guarding— treasures  of  which,  the  more 
thieves  there  were,  the  better!  Broidered 
robe,  only  to  be  rent;  helm  and  sword,  only 
to  be  dimmed;  jewel  and  gold,  only  to  be 
72 


OF   KINGS'   TREASURIES 

scattered;— there  have  been  three  kinds  of 
kings  who  have  gathered  these.  Suppose 
there  ever  should  arise  a  Fourth  order  of 
kings,  who  had  read,  in  some  obscure  writ- 
ing of  long  ago,  that  there  was  a  Fourth 
kind  of  treasure,  which  the  jewel  and  gold 
could  not  equal,  neither  should  it  be  valued 
with  pure  gold.  A  web  made  fair  in  the 
weaving,  by  Athena's  shuttle;  an  armor 
forged  in  divine  fire  by  Vulcanian  force;  a 
gold  to  be  mined  in  the  very  sun's  red  heart, 
where  he  sets  over  the  Delphian  cliffs;— 
deep-pictured  tissue;— impenetrable  armor; 
—potable  gold!— the  three  great  Angels  of 
Conduct,  Toil,  and  Thought,  still  calling  to 
us,  and  waiting  at  the  posts  of  our  doors,  to 
lead  us,  with  their  winged  power,  and  guide 
us,  with  their  unerring  eyes,  by  the  path 
which  no  fowl  knoweth,  and  which  the  vul- 
ture's eye  has  not  seen!  Suppose  kings 
should  ever  arise  who  heard  and  believed 
this  word,  and  at  last  gathered  and  brought 
forth  treasures  of— Wisdom— for  their 
people? 

Think  what  an  amazing  business  that 
would  be!  How  inconceivable,  in  the  state 
of  our  present  national  wisdom!  That  we 
should  bring  up  our  peasants  to  a  book 
exercise  instead  of  a  bayonet  exercise!— 
organize,  drill,  maintain  with  pay  and  good 
73 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


generalship,  armies  of  thinkers,  instead  of 
armies  of  stabbers!— find  national  amuse- 
ment in  reading-rooms  as  well  as  rifle- 
grounds;  give  prizes  for  a  fair  shot  at  a 
fact,  as  well  as  for  a  leaden  splash  on  a 
target.  What  an  absurd  idea  it  seems,  put 
fairly  in  words,  that  the  wealth  of  the  capi- 
talists of  civilized  nations  should  ever  come 
to  support  literature  instead  of  war! 

Have  yet  patience  with  me,  while  I  read 
you  a  single  sentence  out  of  the  only  book, 
properly  to  be  called  a  book,  that  I  have  yet 
written  myself,  the  one  that  will  stand  (if 
anything  stand)  surest  and  longest  of  all 
work  of  mine. 

It  is  one  very  awful  form  of  the  operation  of 
wealth  in  Europe  that  it  is  entirely  capitalists' 
wealth  which  supports  unjust  wars.  Just  wars 
do  not  need  so  much  money  to  support  them ; 
for  most  of  the  men  who  wage  such  wage  them 
gratis ;  but  for  an  unjust  war,  men's  bodies  and 
souls  have  both  to  be  bought ;  and  the  best  tools 
of  war  for  them  besides,  which  make  such  war 
costly  to  the  maximum  ;  not  to  speak  of  the  cost 
of  base  fear,  and  angry  suspicion,  between  na- 
tions which  have  not  grace  nor  honesty  enough 
in  all  their  multitudes  to  buy  an  hour's  peace  of 
mind  with ;  as,  at  present,  France  and  England, 
purchasing  of  each  other  ten  millions  sterling 
worth  of  consternation,  annually  (a  remarkably 
light  crop,  half  thorns  and  half  aspen-leaves, 
sown,  reaped,  and  granariedby  the  "science"  of 

74 


OF   KINGS'  TREASURIES 

the  modern  political  economist,  teaching  covet- 
ousness  instead  of  truth).  And,  all  unjust  war 
being  supportable,  if  not  by  pillage  of  the  enemy, 
only  by  loans  from  capitalists,  these  loans  are  re- 
paid by  subsequent  taxation  of  the  people,  who 
appear  to  have  no  will  in  the  matter,  the  capital- 
ists' will  being  the  primary  root  of  the  war  ;  but 
its  real  root  is  the  covetousness  of  the  whole  nation, 
rendering  it  incapable  of  faith,  frankness,  or  jus- 
tice, and  bringing  about,  therefore,  in  due  time,  his 
own  separate  loss  and  punishment  to  each  person. 

France  and  England  literally,  observe, 
buy  panic  of  each  other;  they  pay,  each  of 
them,  for  ten  thousand  thousand  pounds' 
worth  of  terror,  a  year.  Now  suppose,  in- 
stead of  buying  these  ten  millions'  worth 
of  panic  annually,  they  made  up  their  minds 
to  be  at  peace  with  each  other,  and  buy  ten 
millions'  worth  of  knowledge  annually;  and 
that  each  nation  spent  its  ten  thousand 
thousand  pounds  a  year  in  founding  royal 
libraries,  royal  art  galleries,  royal  museums, 
royal  gardens,  and  places  of  rest.  Might  it 
not  be  better  somewhat  for  both  French  and 
English? 

It  will  be  long,  yet,  before  that  comes  to 
pass.  Nevertheless,  I  hope  it  will  not  be 
long  before  royal  or  national  libraries  will 
be  founded  in  every  considerable  city,  with 
a  royal  series  of  books  in  them;  the  same 
series  in  every  one  of  them,  chosen  books, 
75 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 


the  best  in  every  kind,  prepared  for  that 
national  series  in  the  most  perfect  way  pos- 
sible; their  text  printed  all  on  leaves  of 
equal  size,  broad  of  margin,  and  divided  into 
pleasant  volumes,  light  in  the  hand,  beau- 
tiful, and  strong,  and  thorough  as  exam- 
ples of  binders'  work;  and  that  these  great 
libraries  will  be  accessible  to  all  clean  and 
orderly  persons  at  all  times  of  the  day  and 
evening,  strict  law  being  enforced  for  this 
cleanliness  and  quietness. 

I  could  shape  for  you  other  plans,  for  art 
galleries,  and  for  natural-history  galleries, 
and  for  many  precious— many,  it  seems  to 
me,  needful— things;  but  this  book  plan  is 
the  easiest  and  needfulest,  and  would  prove 
a  considerable  tonic  to  what  we  call  our 
British  constitution,  which  has  fallen  drop- 
sical of  late,  and  has  an  evil  thirst  and  evil 
hunger,  and  wants  healthier  feeding.  You 
have  got  its  corn  laws  repealed  for  it;  try 
if  you  cannot  get  corn  laws  established  for 
it,  dealing  in  a  better  bread— bread  made 
of  that  old  enchanted  Arabian  grain,  the 
Sesame,  which  opens  doors— doors  not  of 
robbers',  but  of  Kings'  Treasuries. 

NOTE  TO  PAGE  45 

Respecting  the  increase  of  rent  by  the 
deaths  of  the  poor,  for  evidence  of  which 
76 


OF   KINGS'  TREASURIES 

see  the  preface  to  the  Medical  Officer's  re- 
port to  the  Privy  Council,  just  published, 
there  are  suggestions  in  its  preface  which 
will  make  some  stir  among  us,  I  fancy, 
respecting  which  let  me  note  these  points 
following: 

There  are  two  theories  on  the  subject  of 
land  now  abroad,  and  in  contention;  both 
false. 

The  first  is  that,  by  Heavenly  law,  there 
have  always  existed,  and  must  continue 
to  exist,  a  certain  number  of  hereditarily 
sacred  persons  to  whom  the  earth,  air,  and 
water  of  the  world  belong,  as  personal  prop- 
erty; of  which  earth,  air,  and  water,  these 
persons  may,  at  their  pleasure,  permit,  or 
forbid,  the  rest  of  the  human  race  to  eat,  to 
breathe,  or  to  drink.  This  theory  is  not  for 
many  years  longer  tenable.  The  adverse 
theory  is  that  a  division  of  the  land  of  the 
world  among  the  mob  of  the  world  would 
immediately  elevate  the  said  mob  into 
sacred  personages;  that  houses  would  then 
build  themselves,  and  corn  grow  of  itself; 
and  that  everybody  would  be  able  to  live, 
without  doing  any  work  for  his  living. 
This  theory  would  also  be  found  highly 
untenable  in  practice. 

It  will,  however,  require  some  rough  ex- 
periments and  rougher  catastrophes  before 
77 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 


the  generality  of  persons  will  be  convinced 
that  no  law  concerning  anything— least  of 
all  concerning  land,  for  either  holding  or 
dividing  it,  or  renting  it  high,  or  renting  it 
low— would  be  of  the  smallest  ultimate  use 
to  the  people,  so  long  as  the  general  con- 
test for  life,  and  for  the  means  of  life, 
remains  one  of  mere  brutal  competition. 
That  contest,  in  an  unprincipled  nation,  will 
take  one  deadly  form  or  another,  whatever 
laws  you  make  against  it.  For  instance,  it 
would  be  an  entirely  wholesome  law  for 
England,  if  it  could  be  carried,  that  maxi- 
mum limits  should  be  assigned  to  incomes 
according  to  classes,  and  that  every  noble- 
man's income  should  be  paid  to  him  as  a 
fixed  salary  or  pension  by  the  nation;  and 
not  squeezed  by  him  in  variable  sums,  at 
discretion,  out  of  the  tenants  of  his  land. 
But  if  you  could  get  such  a  law  passed  to- 
morrow, and  if,  which  would  be  farther 
necessary,  you  could  fix  the  value  of  the 
assigned  incomes  by  making  a  given  weight 
of  pure  bread  for  a  given  sum,  a  twelve- 
month would  not  pass  before  another  cur- 
rency would  have  been  tacitly  established, 
and  the  power  of  accumulated  wealth  would 
have  reasserted  itself  in  some  other  article, 
or  some  other  imaginary  sign.  There  is 
only  one  cure  for  public  distress— and  that 
78 


OF   KINGS'   TREASURIES 

is  public  education,  directed  to  make  men 
thoughtful,  merciful,  and  just.  There  are, 
indeed,  many  laws  conceivable  which  would 
gradually  better  and  strengthen  the  national 
temper;  but,  for  the  most  part,  they  are 
such  as  the  national  temper  must  be  much 
bettered  before  it  would  bear.  A  nation  in 
its  youth  may  be  helped  by  laws,  as  a  weak 
child  by  backboards, but  when  it  is  old  it  can- 
not that  way  strengthen  its  crooked  spine. 
And  besides,  the  problem  of  land,  at  its 
worst,  is  a  by  one;  distribute  the  earth  as 
you  will,  the  principal  question  remains  in- 
exorable,—Who  is  to  dig  it?  Which  of  us, 
in  brief  word,  is  to  do  the  hard  and  dirty 
work  for  the  rest,  and  for  what  pay?  Who 
is  to  do  the  pleasant  and  clean  work,  and 
for  what  pay?  Who  is  to  do  no  work,  and 
for  what  pay?  And  there  are  curious  moral 
and  religious  questions  connected  with 
these.  How  far  is  it  lawful  to  suck  a  por- 
tion of  the  soul  out  of  a  great  many  per- 
sons, in  order  to  put  the  abstracted  psychi- 
cal quantities  together  and  make  one  very 
beautiful  or  ideal  soul?  If  we  had  to  deal 
with  mere  blood  instead  of  spirit  (and  the 
thing  might  literally  be  done,  as  it  has  been 
done  with  infants  before  now),  so  that  it 
were  possible,  by  taking  a  certain  quantity 
of  blood  from  the  arms  of  a  given  number 
79 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


of  the  mob,  and  putting  it  all  into  one  per- 
son, to  make  a  more  azure-blooded  gentle- 
man of  him,  the  thing  would  of  course  be 
managed;  but  secretly,  I  should  conceive. 
But  now,  because  it  is  brain  and  soul  that 
we  abstract,  not  visible  blood,  it  can  be  done 
quite  openly,  and  we  live,  we  gentlemen,  on 
delicatest  prey,  after  the  manner  of  weasels; 
that  is  to  say,  we  keep  a  certain  number  of 
clowns  digging  and  ditching,  and  generally 
stupefied,  in  order  that  we,  being  fed  gratis, 
may  have  all  the  thinking  and  feeling  to 
ourselves.  Yet  there  is  a  great  deal  to  be 
said  for  this.  A  highly  bred  and  trained 
English,  French,  Austrian,  or  Italian  gentle- 
man (much  more  a  lady)  is  a  great  pro- 
duction,—a  better  production  than  most 
statues;  being  beautifully  colored  as  well  as 
shaped,  and  plus  all  the  brains;  a  glorious 
thing  to  look  at,  a  wonderful  thing  to  talk 
to;  and  you  cannot  have  it,  any  more  than 
a  pyramid  or  a  church,  but  by  sacrifice  of 
much  contributed  life.  And  it  is,  perhaps, 
better  to  build  a  beautiful  human  crea- 
ture than  a  beautiful  dome  or  steeple— and 
more  delightful  to  look  up  reverently  to  a 
creature  far  above  us,  than  to  a  wall;  only 
the  beautiful  human  creature  will  have 
some  duties  to  do  in  return— duties  of  liv-. 
ing  belfry  and  rampart— of  which  presently. 
80 


LECTURE  II 

LILIES 
OF  QUEENS'   GARDENS 


LECTURE 

II 
LILIES:  OF  QUEENS'   GARDENS 


Be  thou  glad,  oh  thirsting  Desert;  let  the 
desert  be  made  cheerful,  and  bloom  as  the 
lily;  and  the  barren  places  of  Jordan  shall 
run  wild  with  wood. 

Isaiah  xxxv.  1  (Septuagint). 

IT  will,  perhaps,  be  well,  as  this  Lecture 
is  the  sequel  of  one  previously  given, 
that  I  should  shortly  state  to  you  my 
general  intention  in  both.  The  questions 
specially  proposed  to  you  in  the  first, 
namely,  How  and  What  to  Read,  rose  out 
of  a  far  deeper  one,  which  it  was  my  en- 
deavor to  make  you  propose  earnestly  to 
yourselves,  namely,  Why  to  Read.  I  want 
you  to  feel,  with  me,  that  whatever  advan- 
tages we  possess  in  the  present  day  in  the 
diffusion  of  education  and  of  literature  can 
only  be  rightly  used  by  any  of  us  when  we 
have  apprehended  clearly  what  education  is 
to  lead  to,  and  literature  to  teach.  I  wish 
you  to  see  that  both  well-directed  moral 
training  and  well-chosen  reading  lead  to  the 
possession  of  a  power  over  the  ill-guided 
83 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 


and  illiterate,  which  is,  according  to  the 
measure  of  it,  in  the  truest  sense,  kingly  ; 
conferring  indeed  the  purest  kingship  that 
can  exist  among  men:  too  many  other 
kingships  (however  distinguished  by  visible 
insignia  or  material  power)  being  either 
spectral  or  tyrannous;— spectral— that  is 
to  say,  aspects  and  shadows  only  of  royalty, 
hollow  as  death,  and  which  only  the  "like- 
ness of  a  kingly  crown  have  on":  or  else- 
tyrannous— that  is  to  say,  substituting 
their  own  will  for  the  law  of  justice  and 
love  by  which  all  true  kings  rule. 

There  is,  then,  I  repeat— and  as  I  want  to 
leave  this  idea  with  you,  I  begin  with  it,  and 
shall  end  with  it— only  one  pure  kind  of 
kingship;  an  inevitable  and  eternal  kind, 
crowned  or  not;  the  kingship,  namely,  which 
consists  in  a  stronger  moral  state,  and  a 
truer  thoughtful  state,  than  that  of  others; 
enabling  you,  therefore,  to  guide  or  to  raise 
them.  Observe  that  word  "State";  we 
have  got  into  a  loose  way  of  using  it.  It 
means  literally  the  standing  and  stability 
of  a  thing;  and  you  have  the  full  force  of  it 
in  the  derived  word  "statue"— "the  im- 
movable thing."  A  king's  majesty  or 
"  state,"  then,  and  the  right  of  his  kingdom 
to  be  called  a  state,  depends  on  the  move- 
lessness  of  both:— without  tremor,  with- 
84 


OF  QUEENS'   GARDENS 


out  quiver  of  balance;  established  and  en- 
throned upon  a  foundation  of  eternal  law 
which  nothing  can  alter,  nor  overthrow. 

Believing  that  all  literature  and  all  edu- 
cation are  only  useful  so  far  as  they  tend  to 
confirm  this  calm,  beneficent,  and  therefore 
kingly,  power— first,  over  ourselves,  and, 
through  ourselves,  over  all  around  us,— I 
am  now  going  to  ask  you  to  consider  with 
me  farther  what  special  portion  or  kind  of 
this  royal  authority,  arising  out  of  noble 
education,  may  rightly  be  possessed  by 
women;  and  how  far  they  also  are  called  to 
a  true  queenly  power,— not  in  their  house- 
holds merely,  but  over  all  within  their 
sphere.  And  in  what  sense,  if  they  rightly 
understood  and  exercised  this  royal  or  gra- 
cious influence,  the  order  and  beauty  in- 
duced by  such  benignant  power  would  jus- 
tify us  in  speaking  of  the  territories  over 
which  each  of  them  reigned  as  "Queens' 
Gardens." 

And  here,  in  the  very  outset,  we  are  met 
by  a  far  deeper  question,  which— strange 
though  this  may  seem— remains  among 
many  of  us  yet  quite  undecided  in  spite  of 
its  infinite  importance. 

We  cannot  determine  what  the  queenly 
power  of  women  should  be,  until  we  are 
agreed  what  their  ordinary  power  should 
85 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


be.  We  cannot  consider  how  education  may 
fit  them  for  any  widely  extending  duty, 
until  we  are  agreed  what  is  their  true  con- 
stant duty.  And  there  never  was  a  time 
when  wilder  words  were  spoken,  or  more 
vain  imagination  permitted,  respecting  this 
question— quite  vital  to  all  social  happiness. 
The  relations  of  the  womanly  to  the  manly 
nature,  their  different  capacities  of  intellect 
or  of  virtue,  seem  never  to  have  been  yet 
estimated  with  entire  consent.  We  hear 
of  the  "mission"  and  of  the  "rights"  of 
Woman,  as  if  these  could  ever  be  separate 
from  the  mission  and  the  rights  of  Man- 
as if  she  and  her  lord  were  creatures  of  in- 
dependent kind  and  of  irreconcilable  claim. 
This,  at  least,  is  wrong.  And  not  less 
wrong— perhaps  even  more  foolishly  wrong 
(for  I  will  anticipate  thus  far  what  I  hope 
to  prove)— is  the  idea  that  woman  is  only 
the  shadow  and  attendant  image  of  her  lord, 
owing  him  a  thoughtless  and  servile  obedi- 
ence, and  supported  altogether  in  her  weak- 
ness by  the  preeminence  of  his  fortitude. 

This,  I  say,  is  the  most  foolish  of  all 
errors  respecting  her  who  was  made  to  be 
the  helpmate  of  man.  As  if  he  could  be 
helped  effectively  by  a  shadow,  or  worthily 
by  a  slave! 

Let  us  try,  then,  whether  we  cannot  get 
86 


OP  QUEENS'   GARDENS 


at  some  clear  and  harmonious  idea  (it  must 
be  harmonious  if  it  is  true)  of  what  wo- 
manly mind  and  virtue  are  in  power  and 
office,  with  respect  to  man's;  and  how  their 
relations,  rightly  accepted,  aid  and  increase 
the  vigor  and  honor  and  authority  of  both. 

And  now  I  must  repeat  one  thing  I  said 
in  the  last  lecture:  namely,  that  the  first 
use  of  education  was  to  enable  us  to  consult 
with  the  wisest  and  the  greatest  men  on  all 
points  of  earnest  difficulty.  That  to  use 
books  rightly  was  to  go  to  them  for  help: 
to  appeal  to  them  when  our  own  know- 
ledge and  power  of  thought  failed:  to  be  led 
by  them  into  wider  sight— purer  concep- 
tion—than our  own,  and  receive  from  them 
the  united  sentence  of  the  judges  and  coun- 
cils of  all  time,  against  our  solitary  and 
unstable  opinion. 

Let  us  do  this  now.  Let  us  see  whether 
the  greatest,  the  wisest,  the  purest-hearted 
of  all  ages  are  agreed  in  any  wise  on  this 
point:  let  us  hear  the  testimony  they  have 
left  respecting  what  they  held  to  be  the 
true  dignity  of  woman,  and  her  mode  of  help 
to  man. 

And  first  let  us  take  Shakspere. 

Note  broadly  in  the  outset,  Shakspere  has 
no  heroes; — he  has  only  heroines.  There  is 
not  one  entirely  heroic  figure  in  all  his 
87 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 


plays,  except  the  slight  sketch  of  Henry  the 
Fifth,  exaggerated  for  the  purposes  of  the 
stage;  and  the  still  slighter  Valentine  in 
"The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona."  In  his 
labored  and  perfect  plays  you  have  no  hero. 
Othello  would  have  been  one,  if  his  sim- 
plicity had  not  been  so  great  as  to  leave  him 
the  prey  of  every  base  practice  round  him; 
but  he  is  the  only  example  even  approxi- 
mating to  the  heroic  type.  Coriolanus— 
Caesar— Antony  stand  in  flawed  strength, 
and  fall  by  their  vanities;— Hamlet  is  indo- 
lent and  drowsily  speculative;  Romeo  an 
impatient  boy;  the  Merchant  of  Venice 
languidly  submissive  to  adverse  fortune; 
Kent,  in  "  King  Lear,"  is  entirely  noble  at 
heart,  but  too  rough  and  unpolished  to  be 
of  true  use  at  the  critical  time,  and  he 
sinks  into  the  office  of  a  servant  only. 
Orlando,  no  less  noble,  is  yet  the  despairing 
toy  of  chance,  followed,  comforted,  saved  by 
Rosalind.  Whereas  there  is  hardly  a  play 
that  has  not  a  perfect  woman  in  it,  stead- 
fast in  grave  hope  and  errorless  purpose: 
Cordelia,  Desdemona,  Isabella,  Hermione, 
Imogen,  Queen  Catherine,  Perdita,  Sylvia, 
Viola,  Rosalind,  Helena,  and  last,  and 
perhaps  loveliest,  Virgilia,  are  all  faultless; 
conceived  in  the  highest  heroic  type  of 
humanity. 

88 


OP  QUEENS'   GARDENS 


Then  observe,  secondly, 

The  catastrophe  of  every  play  is  caused 
always  by  the  folly  or  fault  of  a  man;  the 
redemption,  if  there  be  any,  is  by  the  wis- 
dom and  virtue  of  a  woman,  and,  failing 
that,  there  is  none.  The  catastrophe  of 
King  Lear  is  owing  to  his  own  want  of  judg- 
ment, his  impatient  vanity,  his  misunder- 
standing of  his  children;  the  virtue  of  his 
one  true  daughter  would  have  saved  him 
from  all  the  injuries  of  the  others,  unless 
he  had  cast  her  away  from  him;  as  it  is, 
she  all  but  saves  him. 

Of  Othello  I  need  not  trace  the  tale;— nor 
the  one  weakness  of  his  so  mighty  love;  nor 
the  inferiority  of  his  perceptive  intellect  to 
that  even  of  the  second  woman  character 
in  the  play,  the  Emilia  who  dies  in  wild 
testimony  against  his  error: 

Oh,  murderous  coxcomb !  what  should  such  a  fool 
Do  with  so  good  a  wife? 

In  "Romeo  and  Juliet,"  the  wise  and 
brave  stratagem  of  the  wife  is  brought  to 
ruinous  issue  by  the  reckless  impatience  of 
her  husband.  In  "Winter's  Tale,"  and  in 
"Cymbeline,"  the  happiness  and  existence 
of  two  princely  households,  lost  through 
long  years,  and  imperiled  to  the  death  by 
the  folly  and  obstinacy  of  the  husbands, 
89 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 


are  redeemed  at  last  by  the  queenly  pa- 
tience and  wisdom  of  the  wives.  In  "  Mea- 
sure for  Measure,"  the  foul  injustice  of  the 
judge,  and  the  foul  cowardice  of  the 
brother,  are  opposed  to  the  victorious 
truth  and  adamantine  purity  of  a  woman. 
In  "  Coriolanus,"  the  mother's  counsel, 
acted  upon  in  time,  would  have  saved  her 
son  from  all  evil;  his  momentary  forgetful- 
ness  of  it  is  his  ruin;  her  prayer,  at  last 
granted,  saves  him— not,  indeed,  from 
death,  but  from  the  curse  of  living  as  the 
destroyer  of  his  country. 

And  what  shall  I  say  of  Julia,  constant 
against  the  fickleness  of  a  lover  who  is  a 
mere  wicked  child?— of  Helena,  against  the 
petulance  and  insult  of  a  careless  youth? 
—of  the  patience  of  Hero,  the  passion  of 
Beatrice,  and  the  calmly  devoted  wisdom  of 
the  "unlessoned  girl,"  who  appears  among 
the  helplessness,  the  blindness,  and  the 
vindictive  passions  of  men,  as  a  gentle 
angel,  bringing  courage  and  safety  by  her 
presence,  and  defeating  the  worst  maligni- 
ties of  crime  by  what  women  are  fancied 
most  to  fail  in,— precision  and  accuracy  of 
thought. 

Observe,  further,  among  all  the  principal 
figures  in  Shakspere's  plays,  there  is  only 
one  weak  woman— Ophelia;  and  it  is  be- 
90 


cause  she  fails  Hamlet  at  the  critical  mo- 
ment, and  is  not,  and  cannot  in  her  nature 
be,  a  guide  to  him  when  he  needs  her  most, 
that  all  the  bitter  catastrophe  follows. 
Finally,  though  there  are  three  wicked 
women  among  the  principal  figures — Lady 
Macbeth,  Regan,  and  Goneril— they  are  felt 
at  once  to  be  frightful  exceptions  to  the 
ordinary  laws  of  life;  fatal  in  their  influence, 
also,  in  proportion  to  the  power  for  good 
which  they  have  abandoned. 

Such,  in  broad  light,  is  Shakspere's  tes- 
timony to  the  position  and  character  of 
women  in  human  life.  He  represents  them 
as  infallibly  faithful  and  wise  counselors, 
— incorruptibly  just  and  pure  examples— 
strong  always  to  sanctify,  even  when  they 
cannot  save. 

Not  as  in  any  wise  comparable  in  know- 
ledge of  the  nature  of  man,— still  less  in  his 
understanding  of  the  causes  and  courses  of 
fate,— but  only  as  the  writer  who  has  given 
us  the  broadest  view  of  the  conditions  and 
modes  of  ordinary  thought  in  modern  soci- 
ety, I  ask  you  next  to  receive  the  witness 
of  Walter  Scott. 

I  put  aside  his  merely  romantic  prose 

writings  as  of  no  value,  and  though  the 

early  romantic  poetry  is  very  beautiful,  its 

testimony  is  of  no  weight,  other  than  that 

91 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


of  a  boy's  ideal.  But  his  true  works,  studied 
from  Scottish  life,  bear  a  true  witness;  and 
in  the  whole  range  of  these  there  are  but 
three  men  who  reach  the  heroic  type1— 
Dandie  Dinmont,  Rob  Roy,  and  Claverhouse; 
of  these,  one  is  a  border  farmer;  another  a 
freebooter;  the  third  a  soldier  in  a  bad 
cause.  And  these  touch  the  ideal  of  hero- 
ism only  in  their  courage  and  faith,  together 
with  a  strong,  but  uncultivated,  or  mistak- 
enly applied,  intellectual  power;  while  his 
younger  men  are  the  gentlemanly  play- 
things of  fantastic  fortune,  and  only  by  aid 
(or  accident)  of  that  fortune  survive,  not 
vanquish,  the  trials  they  involuntarily  sus- 
tain. Of  any  disciplined  or  consistent  char- 
acter, earnest  in  a  purpose  wisely  conceived, 
or  dealing  with  forms  of  hostile  evil,  defi- 
nitely challenged  and  resolutely  subdued, 
there  is  no  trace  in  his  conceptions  of 
young  men.  Whereas  in  his  imaginations 
of  women,— in  the  characters  of  Ellen  Doug- 
las, of  Flora  Maclvor,  Rose  Bradwardine, 

1 1  ought,  in  order  to  make  this  assertion  fully  understood, 
to  have  noted  the  various  weaknesses  which  lower  the  ideal 
of  other  great  characters  of  men  in  the  Waverley  Novels  — 
the  selfishness  and  narrowness  of  thought  in  Redgauntlet, 
the  weak  religious  enthusiasm  in  Edward  Qlendinning,  and 
the  like ;  and  I  ought  to  have  noticed  that  there  are  several 
quite  perfect  characters  sketched  sometimes  in  the  bock* 
grounds ;  three  —  let  us  accept  joyously  this  courtesy  to  Eng- 
land and  her  soldiers —  are  English  officers :  Colonel  Oardiner, 
Colonel  Talbot,  and  Colonel  Mannering. 

92 


OP   QUEENS'   GARDENS 


Catherine  Seyton,  Diana  Vernon,  Lilias 
Redgauntlet,  Alice  Bridgenorth,  Alice  Lee, 
and  Jeanie  Deans,— with  endless  varieties 
of  grace,  tenderness,  and  intellectual  power, 
we  find  in  all  a  quite  infallible  sense  of 
dignity  and  justice;  a  fearless,  instant,  and' 
untiring  self-sacrifice  to  even  the  appear- 
ance of  duty,  much  more  to  its  real  claims; 
and,  finally,  a  patient  wisdom  of  deeply 
restrained  affection,  which  does  infinitely 
more  than  protect  its  objects  from  a  mo- 
mentary error;  it  gradually  forms,  ani- 
mates, and  exalts  the  characters  of  the 
unworthy  lovers,  until,  at  the  close  of  the 
tale,  we  are  just  able,  and  no  more,  to  take 
patience  in  hearing  of  their  unmerited  suc- 
cess. 

So  that,  in  all  cases,  with  Scott  as  with 
Shakspere,  it  is  the  woman  who  watches 
over,  teaches,  and  guides  the  youth;  it  is 
never,  by  any  chance,  the  youth  who 
watches  over,  or  educates,  his  mistress. 

Next  take,  though  more  briefly,  graver 
testimony— that  of  the  great  Italians  and 
Greeks.  You  know  well  the  plan  of  Dante's 
great  poem— that  it  is  a  love-poem  to  his 
dead  lady;  a  song  of  praise  for  her  watch 
over  his  soul.  Stooping  only  to  pity,  never 
to  love,  she  yet  saves  him  from  destruc- 
tion— saves  him  from  hell.  He  is  going 
93 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


eternally  astray  in  despair;  she  comes  down 
from  heaven  to  his  help,  and  throughout 
the  ascents  of  Paradise  is  his  teacher, 
interpreting  for  him  the  most  difficult 
truths,  divine  and  human;  and  leading 
him,  with  rebuke  upon  rebuke,  from  star 
to  star. 

I  do  not  insist  upon  Dante's  conception; 
if  I  began  I  could  not  cease:  besides,  you 
might  think  this  a  wild  imagination  of  one 
poet's  heart.  So  I  will  rather  read  to  you 
a  few  verses  of  the  deliberate  writing  of  a 
knight  of  Pisa  to  his  living  lady,  wholly 
characteristic  of  the  feeling  of  all  the  no- 
blest men  of  the  thirteenth,  or  early  four- 
teenth, century,  preserved  among  many 
other  such  records  of  knightly  honor  and 
love,  which  Dante  Rossetti  has  gathered 
for  us  from  among  the  early  Italian  poets. 

For  lo  !  thy  law  is  passed 
That  this  my  love  should  manifestly  be 

To  serve  and  honor  thee : 
And  so  I  do ;  and  my  delight  is  full, 
Accepted  for  the  servant  of  thy  rule. 

Without  almost,  I  am  all  rapturous, 

Since  thus  my  will  was  set 
To  serve,  thou  flower  of  joy,  thine  excellence  : 
Nor  ever  seems  it  anything  could  rouse 

A  pain  or  a  regret. 
But  on  thee  dwells  my  every  thought  and  sense ; 

94 


OF  QUEENS'   GARDENS 


Considering  that  from  thee  all  virtues  spread 
As  from  a  fountain-head, — 

That  in  thy  gift  is  wisdom's  best  avail, 
And  honor  without  fail, 

With  whom  each  sovereign  good  dwells 
separate, 

Fulfilling  the  perfection  of  thy  state. 

Lady,  since  I  conceived 
Thy  pleasurable  aspect  in  my  heart, 

My  life  has  been  apart 
In  shining  brightness  and  the  place  of  truth; 

Which  till  that  time,  good  sooth, 
Groped  among  shadows  in  a  darken'd  place, 

Where  many  hours  and  days 
It  hardly  ever  had  remember' d  good. 

But  now  my  servitude 
Is  thine,  and  I  am  full  of  joy  and  rest. 

A  man  from  a  wild  beast 
Thou  madest  me,  since  for  thy  love  I  lived. 

You  may  think  perhaps  a  Greek  knight 
would  have  had  a  lower  estimate  of  women 
than  this  Christian  lover.  His  spiritual 
subjection  to  them  was  indeed  not  so  abso- 
lute; but  as  regards  their  own  personal 
character,  it  was  only  because  you  could 
not  have  followed  me  so  easily  that  I  did 
not  take  the  Greek  women  instead  of  Shak- 
spere's;  and  instance,  for  chief  ideal  types  of 
human  beauty  and  faith,  the  simple  mo- 
ther's and  wife's  heart  of  Andromache;  the 
divine  yet  rejected  wisdom  of  Cassandra; 
95 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


the  playful  kindness  and  simple  princess- 
life  of  happy  Nausicaa;  the  housewifely  calm 
of  that  of  Penelope,  with  its  watch  upon 
the  sea;  the  ever  patient,  fearless,  hope- 
lessly devoted  piety  of  the  sister,  and 
daughter,  in  Antigone;  the  bowing  down  of 
Iphigenia,  lamb-like  and  silent;  and  finally, 
the  expectation  of  the  resurrection,  made 
clear  to  the  soul  of  the  Greeks  in  the  return 
from  her  grave  of  that  Alcestis,  who,  to  save 
her  husband,  had  passed  calmly  through 
the  bitterness  of  death. 

Now  I  could  multiply  witness  upon  wit- 
ness of  this  kind  upon  you  if  I  had  time. 
I  would  take  Chaucer,  and  show  you  why  he 
wrote  a  Legend  of  Good  Women;  but  no 
Legend  of  Good  Men.  I  would  take  Spen- 
ser, and  show  you  how  all  his  fairy  knights 
are  sometimes  deceived  and  sometimes 
vanquished;  but  the  soul  of  Una  is  never 
darkened,  and  the  spear  of  Britomart  is 
never  broken.  Nay,  I  could  go  back  into 
the  mythical  teaching  of  the  most  ancient 
times,  and  show  you  how  the  great  people, 
—by  one  of  whose  princesses  it  was  ap- 
pointed that  the  Lawgiver  of  all  the  earth 
should  be  educated,  rather  than  by  his  own 
kindred;— how  that  great  Egyptian  people, 
wisest  then  of  nations,  gave  to  their  Spirit 
of  Wisdom  the  form  of  a  Woman;  and  into 
96 


OF   QUEENS'   GARDENS 


her  hand,  for  a  symbol,  the  weaver's  shut- 
tle; and  how  the  name  and  the  form  of  that 
spirit,  adopted,  believed,  and  obeyed  by  the 
Greeks,  became  that  Athena  of  the  olive 
helm  and  cloudy  shield,  to  faith  in  whom 
you  owe,  down  to  this  date,  whatever  you 
hold  most  precious  in  art,  in  literature,  or 
in  types  of  national  virtue. 

But  I  will  not  wander  into  this  distant 
and  mythical  element;  I  will  only  ask  you 
to  give  its  legitimate  value  to  the  testimony 
of  these  great  poets  and  men  of  the  world, 
—consistent,  as  you  see  it  is,  on  this  head. 
I  will  ask  you  whether  it  can  be  supposed 
that  these  men,  in  the  main  work  of  their 
lives,  are  amusing  themselves  with  a  fic- 
titious and  idle  view  of  the  relations  be- 
tween man  and  woman;— nay,  worse  than 
fictitious  or  idle;  for  a  thing  may  be  imagi- 
nary, yet  desirable,  if  it  were  possible:  but 
this,  their  ideal  of  woman,  is,  according  to 
our  common  idea  of  the  marriage  relation, 
wholly  undesirable.  The  woman,  we  say, 
is  not  to  guide,  nor  even  to  think  for  her- 
self. The  man  is  always  to  be  the  wiser; 
he  is  to  be  the  thinker,  the  ruler,  the  su- 
perior in  knowledge  and  discretion,  as  in 
power. 

Is  it  not  somewhat  important  to  make  up 
our  minds  on  this  matter?  Are  all  these 
7  97 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 


great  men  mistaken,  or  are  we?  Are 
Shakspere  and  ^Sschylus,  Dante  and  Homer, 
merely  dressing  dolls  for  us;  or,  worse  than 
dolls,  unnatural  visions,  the  realization  of 
which,  were  it  possible,  would  bring  an- 
archy into  all  households  and  ruin  into  all 
affections?  Nay,  if  you  can  suppose  this, 
take  lastly  the  evidence  of  facts,  given  by 
the  human  heart  itself.  In  all  Christian 
ages  which  have  been  remarkable  for  their 
purity  or  progress,  there  has  been  absolute 
yielding  of  obedient  devotion,  by  the  lover, 
to  his  mistress.  I  say  obedient ;— not 
merely  enthusiastic  and  worshiping  in  ima- 
gination, but  entirely  subject,  receiving 
from  the  beloved  woman,  however  young, 
not  only  the  encouragement,  the  praise,  and 
the  reward  of  all  toil,  but,  so  far  as  any 
choice  is  open,  or  any  question  difficult  of 
decision,  the  direction  of  all  toil.  That 
chivalry,  to  the  abuse  and  dishonor  of  which 
are  attributable  primarily  whatever  is  cruel 
in  war,  unjust  in  peace,  or  corrupt  and  ig- 
noble in  domestic  relations;  and  to  the 
original  purity  and  power  of  which  we  owe 
the  defense  alike  of  faith,  of  law,  and  of 
love;  that  chivalry,  I  say,  in  its  very  first 
conception  of  honorable  life,  assumes  the 
subjection  of  the  young  knight  to  the  com- 
mand—should it  even  be  the  command  in 
98 


OF   QUEENS'   GARDENS 


caprice— of  his  lady.  It  assumes  this,  be- 
cause its  masters  knew  that  the  first  and 
necessary  impulse  of  every  truly  taught  and 
knightly  heart  is  this  of  blind  service  to  its 
lady:  that  where  that  true  faith  and  cap- 
tivity are  not,  all  wayward  and  wicked  pas- 
sion must  be;  and  that  in  this  rapturous 
obedience  to  the  single  love  of  his  youth  is 
the  sanctification  of  all  man's  strength,  and 
the  continuance  of  all  his  purposes.  And 
this,  not  because  such  obedience  would  be 
safe,  or  honorable,  were  it  ever  rendered  to 
the  unworthy;  but  because  it  ought  to  be 
impossible  for  every  noble  youth— it  is  im- 
possible for  every  one  rightly  trained— to 
love  any  one  whose  gentle  counsel  he  can- 
not trust,  or  whose  prayerful  command  he 
can  hesitate  to  obey. 

I  do  not  insist  by  any  farther  argument 
on  this,  for  I  think  it  should  commend  it- 
self at  once  to  your  knowledge  of  what  has 
been  and  to  your  feeling  of  what  should  be. 
You  cannot  think  that  the  buckling  on  of 
the  knight's  armor  by  his  lady's  hand  was 
a  mere  caprice  of  romantic  fashion.  It  is 
the  type  of  an  eternal  truth— that  the  soul's 
armor  is  never  well  set  to  the  heart  unless 
a  woman's  hand  has  braced  it;  and  it  is  only 
when  she  braces  it  loosely  that  the  honor 
of  manhood  fails.  Know  you  not  those 
99 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 


lovely  lines— I  would  they  were  learned  by 
all  youthful  ladies  of  England: 

Ah,  wasteful  woman  ! — she  who  may 
On  her  sweet  self  set  her  own  price, 
Knowing  he  cannot  choose  but  pay  — 
How  has  she  cheapen' d  Paradise  ! 
How  given  for  naught  her  priceless  gift, 
How  spoiled  the  bread  and  spill' d  the  wine, 
Which,  spent  with  due  respective  thrift, 
Had  made  brutes  men,  and  men  divine  !  * 

Thus  much,  then,  respecting  the  relations 
of  lovers  I  believe  you  will  accept.  But 
what  we  too  often  doubt  is  the  fitness  of 
the  continuance  of  such  a  relation  through- 
out the  whole  of  human  life.  We  think  it 
right  in  the  lover  and  mistress,  not  in  the 
husband  and  wife.  That  is  to  say,  we  think 
that  a  reverent  and  tender  duty  is  due  to 
one  whose  affection  we  still  doubt,  and 
whose  character  we  as  yet  do  but  partially 
and  distantly  discern;  and  that  this  rever- 
ence and  duty  are  to  be  withdrawn  when 
the  affection  has  become  wholly  and  limit- 
lessly  our  own,  and  the  character  has  been 
so  sifted  and  tried  that  we  fear  not  to  in- 
trust it  with  the  happiness  of  our  lives. 

1  Coventry  Patmore.  You  cannot  read  him  too  often  or 
too  carefully;  as  far  as  I  know  he  is  the  only  living  poet 
who  always  strengthens  and  purifies ;  the  others  sometimes 
darken,  and  nearly  always  depress  and  discourage,  the  ima- 
gination they  deeply  seize. 

100 


OF  QUEENS'   GARDENS 


Do  you  not  see  how  ignoble  this  is,  as  well 
as  how  unreasonable?  Do  you  not  feel  that 
marriage— when  it  is  marriage  at  all— is 
only  the  seal  which  marks  the  vowed  tran- 
sition of  temporary  into  untiring  service, 
and  of  fitful  into  eternal  love? 

But  how,  you  will  ask,  is  the  idea  of  this 
guiding  function  of  the  woman  reconcilable 
with  a  true  wifely  subjection?  Simply  in 
that  it  is  a  guiding,  not  a  determining,  func- 
tion. Let  me  try  to  show  you  briefly  how 
these  powers  seem  to  be  rightly  distinguish- 
able. 

We  are  foolish,  and  without  excuse  fool- 
ish, in  speaking  of  the  "  superiority  "  of  one 
sex  to  the  other,  as  if  they  could  be  com- 
pared in  similar  things.  Each  has  what  the 
other  has  not:  each  completes  the  other, 
and  is  completed  by  the  other:  they  are  in 
nothing  alike,  and  the  happiness  and  per- 
fection of  both  depends  on  each  asking  and 
receiving  from  the  other  what  the  other 
only  can  give. 

Now  their  separate  characters  are  briefly 
these.  The  man's  power  is  active,  pro- 
gressive, defensive.  He  is  eminently  the 
doer,  the  creator,  the  discoverer,  the  de- 
fender. His  intellect  is  for  speculation  and 
invention;  his  energy  for  adventure,  for 
war,  and  for  conquest,  wherever  war  is  just, 
101 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


wherever  conquest  necessary.  But  the 
woman's  power  is  for  rule,  not  for  battle, 
—and  her  intellect  is  not  for  invention  or 
creation,  but  for  sweet  ordering,  arrange- 
ment, and  decision.  She  sees  the  qualities 
of  things,  their  claims,  and  their  places. 
Her  great  function  is  Praise;  she  enters 
into  no  contest,  but  infallibly  adjudges  the 
crown  of  contest.  By  her  office,  and  place, 
she  is  protected  from  all  danger  and  temp- 
tation. The  man,  in  his  rough  work  in  open 
world,  must  encounter  all  peril  and  trial;— 
to  him,  therefore,  must  be  the  failure,  the 
offense,  the  inevitable  error:  often  he  must 
be  wounded  or  subdued;  often  misled;  and 
always  hardened.  But  he  guards  the 
woman  from  all  this;  within  his  house,  as 
ruled  by  her,  unless  she  herself  has  sought 
it,  need  enter  no  danger,  no  temptation,  no 
cause  of  error  or  offense.  This  is  the  true 
nature  of  home— it  is  the  place  of  Peace; 
the  shelter,  not  only  from  all  injury,  but 
from  all  terror,  doubt,  and  division.  In  so 
far  as  it  is  not  this,  it  is  not  home;  so  far 
as  the  anxieties  of  the  outer  life  penetrate 
into  it,  and  the  inconsistently  minded,  un- 
known, unloved,  or  hostile  society  of  the 
outer  world  is  allowed  by  either  husband  or 
wife  to  cross  the  threshold,  it  ceases  to  be 
home;  it  is  then  only  a  part  of  that  outer 
102 


OP   QUEENS'   GARDENS 


world  which  you  have  roofed  over  and 
lighted  fire  in.  But  so  far  as  it  is  a  sacred 
place,  a  vestal  temple,  a  temple  of  the 
hearth  watched  over  by  Household  Gods, 
before  whose  faces  none  may  come  but 
those  whom  they  can  receive  with  love,— so 
far  as  it  is  this,  and  roof  and  fire  are  types 
only  of  a  nobler  shade  and  light,— shade  as 
of  the  rock  in  a  weary  land,  and  light  as  of 
the  Pharos  in  the  stormy  sea;— so  far  it 
vindicates  the  name,  and  fulfils  the  praise, 
of  Home. 

And  wherever  a  true  wife  comes,  this 
home  is  always  round  her.  The  stars  only 
may  be  over  her  head;  the  glow-worm  in  the 
night-cold  grass  may  be  the  only  fire  at 
her  foot;  but  home  is  yet  wherever  she  is; 
and  for  a  noble  woman  it  stretches  far 
round  her,  better  than  ceiled  with  cedar,  or 
painted  with  vermilion,  shedding  its  quiet 
light  far,  for  those  who  else  were  homeless. 

This,  then,  I  believe  to  be— will  you  not 
admit  it  to  be— the  woman's  true  place  and 
power?  But  do  not  you  see  that,  to  fulfil 
this,  she  must— as  far  as  one  can  use  such 
terms  of  a  human  creature— be  incapable 
of  error?  So  far  as  she  rules,  all  must  be 
right,  or  nothing  is.  She  must  be  endur- 
ingly,  incorruptibly  good;  instinctively,  in- 
fallibly wise— wise,  notfor  self-development, 
103 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


but  for  self-renunciation:  wise,  not  that  she 
may  set  herself  above  her  husband,  but 
that  she  may  never  fail  from  his  side:  wise, 
not  with  the  narrowness  of  insolent  and 
loveless  pride,  but  with  the  passionate  gen- 
tleness of  an  infinitely  variable,  because 
infinitely  applicable,  modesty  of  service— 
the  true  changefulness  of  woman.  In  that 
great  sense— "La  donna  e  mobile,"  not 
"  Qual  pium'  al  vento  " ;  no,  nor  yet "  Variable 
as  the  shade  by  the  light  quivering  aspen 
made";  but  variable  as  the  light,  manifold  in 
fair  and  serene  division,  that  it  may  take  the 
color  of  all  that  it  falls  upon,  and  exalt  it. 

II.  I  have  been  trying,  thus  far,  to  show  you 
what  should  be  the  place  and  what  the  power 
of  woman.  Now,  secondly,  we  ask,  What 
kind  of  education  is  to  fit  her  for  these? 

And  if  you  indeed  think  this  a  true  con- 
ception of  her  office  and  dignity,  it  will  not 
be  difficult  to  trace  the  course  of  education 
which  would  fit  her  for  the  one,  and  raise 
her  to  the  other. 

The  first  of  our  duties  to  her— no 
thoughtful  persons  now  doubt  this— is  to 
secure  for  her  such  physical  training  and 
exercise  as  may  confirm  her  health  and 
perfect  her  beauty;  the  highest  refinement 
of  that  beauty  being  unattainable  without 
splendor  of  activity  and  of  delicate  strength. 
104 


OF   QUEENS'  GARDENS 


To  perfect  her  beauty,  I  say,  and  increase 
its  power;  it  cannot  be  too  powerful,  nor 
shed  its  sacred  light  too  far:  only  remem- 
ber that  all  physical  freedom  is  vain  to 
produce  beauty  without  a  corresponding 
freedom  of  heart.  There  are  two  passages 
of  that  poet  who  is  distinguished,  it  seems 
to  me,  from  all  others— not  by  power,  but  by 
exquisite  Tightness— which  point  you  to  the 
source,  and  describe  to  you,  in  a  few  syllables, 
the  completion  of  womanly  beauty.  I  will 
read  the  introductory  stanzas,  but  the  last 
is  the  one  I  wish  you  specially  to  notice: 

Three  years  she  grew  in  sun  and  shower, 
Then  Nature  said:  "  A  lovelier  flower 

On  earth  was  never  sown  ; 
This  child  I  to  myself  will  take  ; 
She  shall  be  mine,  and  I  will  make 

A  lady  of  my  own. 

"  Myself  will  to  my  darling  be 
Both  law  and  impulse  ;  and  with  me 

The  girl,  in  rock  and  plain, 
In  earth  and  heaven,  in  glade  and  bower, 
Shall  feel  an  overseeing  power 

To  kindle,  or  restrain. 

"The  floating  clouds  their  state  shall  lend 
To  her,  for  her  the  willow  bend  ; 

Nor  shall  she  fail  to  see, 
Even  in  the  motions  of  the  storm, 
Grace  that  shall  mold  the  maiden's  form 

By  silent  sympathy. 

105 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 


"  And  vital  feelings  of  delight 

Shall  rear  her  form  to  stately  height, — 

Her  virgin  bosom  swell. 
Such  thoughts  to  Lucy  I  will  give, 
While  she  and  I  together  live, 

Here  in  this  happy  dell." 1 

"  Vital  feelings  of  delight,"  observe. 
There  are  deadly  feelings  of  delight;  but  the 
natural  ones  are  vital,  necessary  to  very  life. 

And  they  must  be  feelings  of  delight,  if 
they  are  to  be  vital.  Do  not  think  you  can 
make  a  girl  lovely,  if  you  do  not  make  her 
happy.  There  is  not  one  restraint  you  put 
on  a  good  girl's  nature— there  is  not  one 
check  you  give  to  her  instincts  of  affection  or 
of  effort— which  will  not  be  indelibly  written 
on  her  features,  with  a  hardness  which  is 
all  the  more  painful  because  it  takes  away 
the  brightness  from  the  eyes  of  innocence, 
and  the  charm  from  the  brow  of  virtue. 

This  for  the  means:  now  note  the  end. 
Take  from  the  same  poet,  in  two  lines,  a 
perfect  description  of  womanly  beauty: 

A  countenance  in  which  did  meet 
Sweet  records,  promises  as  sweet. 

The  perfect  loveliness  of  a  woman's  coun- 
tenance can  only  consist  in  that  majestic 

i  Observe,  it  is  "  Nature  "  who  is  speaking  throughout,  and 
who  says,  "while  she  and  I  together  live." 

106 


OF   QUEENS'   GARDENS 


peace,  which  is  founded  in  the  memory  of 
happy  and  useful  years,— full  of  sweet  rec- 
ords; and  from  the  joining  of  this  with 
that  yet  more  majestic  childishness,  which 
is  still  full  of  change  and  promise;— opening 
always— modest  at  once,  and  bright,  with 
hope  of  better  things  to  be  won  and  to  be 
bestowed.  There  is  no  old  age  where  there 
is  still  that  promise. 

Thus,  then,  you  have  first  to  mold  her 
physical  frame,  and  then,  as  the  strength 
she  gains  will  permit  you,  to  fill  and  temper 
her  mind  with  all  knowledge  and  thoughts 
which  tend  to  confirm  its  natural  instincts 
of  justice,  and  refine  its  natural  tact  of  love. 

All  such  knowledge  should  be  given  her 
as  may  enable  her  to  understand,  and  even 
to  aid,  the  work  of  men:  and  yet  it  should 
be  given,  not  as  knowledge,— not  as  if  it 
were,  or  could  be,  for  her  an  object  to  know; 
but  only  to  feel  and  to  judge.  It  is  of  no 
moment,  as  a  matter  of  pride  or  perfectness 
in  herself,  whether  she  knows  many  lan- 
guages or  one;  but  it  is  of  the  utmost  that 
she  should  be  able  to  show  kindness  to  a 
stranger,  and  to  understand  the  sweetness 
of  a  stranger's  tongue.  It  is  of  no  moment 
to  her  own  worth  or  dignity  that  she  should 
be  acquainted  with  this  science  or  that;  but 
it  is  of  the  highest  that  she  should  be 
107 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


trained  in  habits  of  accurate  thought;  that 
she  should  understand  the  meaning,  the 
inevitableness,  and  the  loveliness  of  natural 
laws;  and  follow  at  least  some  one  path  of 
scientific  attainment,  as  far  as  to  the  thresh- 
old of  that  bitter  Valley  of  Humiliation, 
into  which  only  the  wisest  and  bravest  of 
men  can  descend,  owning  themselves  for- 
ever children,  gathering  pebbles  on  a  bound- 
less shore.  It  is  of  little  consequence  how 
many  positions  of  cities  she  knows,  or  how 
many  dates  of  events,  or  names  of  cele- 
brated persons— it  is  not  the  object  of  edu- 
cation to  turn  the  woman  into  a  dictionary; 
but  it  is  deeply  necessary  that  she  should 
be  taught  to  enter  with  her  whole  person- 
ality into  the  history  she  reads;  to  picture 
the  passages  of  it  vitally  in  her  own  bright 
imagination;  to  apprehend,  with  her  fine 
instincts,  the  pathetic  circumstances  and 
dramatic  relations,  which  the  historian  too 
often  only  eclipses  by  his  reasoning,  and 
disconnects  by  his  arrangement:  it  is  for 
her  to  trace  the  hidden  equities  of  divine 
reward,  and  catch  sight,  through  the  dark- 
ness, of  the  fateful  threads  of  woven  fire 
that  connect  error  with  retribution.  But, 
chiefly  of  all,  she  is  to  be  taught  to  extend 
the  limits  of  her  sympathy  with  respect  to 
that  history  which  is  being  forever  deter- 
108 


OF   QUEENS'   GARDENS 


mined  as  the  moments  pass  in  which  she 
draws  her  peaceful  breath;  and  to  the  con- 
temporary calamity,  which,  were  it  but 
rightly  mourned  by  her,  would  recur  no 
more  hereafter.  She  is  to  exercise  herself 
in  imagining  what  would  be  the  effects  upon 
her  mind  and  conduct  if  she  were  daily 
brought  into  the  presence  of  the  suffering 
which  is  not  the  less  real  because  shut  from 
her  sight.  She  is  to  be  taught  somewhat 
to  understand  the  nothingness  of  the  pro- 
portion which  that  little  world  in  which  she 
lives  and  loves,  bears  to  the  world  in  which 
God  lives  and  loves;— and  solemnly  she  is 
to  be  taught  to  strive  that  her  thoughts  of 
piety  may  not  be  feeble  in  proportion  to  the 
number  they  embrace,  nor  her  prayer  more 
languid  than  it  is  for  the  momentary  relief 
from  pain  of  her  husband  or  her  child, 
when  it  is  uttered  for  the  multitudes  of 
those  who  have  none  to  love  them, — and  is 
"for  all  who  are  desolate  and  oppressed." 

Thus  far,  I  think,  I  have  had  your  con- 
currence; perhaps  you  will  not  be  with  me 
in  what  I  believe  is  most  needful  for  me  to 
say.  There  is  one  dangerous  science  for 
women— one  which  they  must  indeed  be- 
ware how  they  profanely  touch— that  of 
theology.  Strange,  and  miserably  strange, 
that  while  they  are  modest  enough  to  doubt 
109 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


their  powers,  and  pause  at  the  threshold  of 
sciences  where  every  step  is  demonstrable 
and  sure,  they  will  plunge  headlong,  and 
without  one  thought  of  incompetency,  into 
that  science  in  which  the  greatest  men  have 
trembled,  and  the  wisest  erred.  Strange, 
that  they  will  complacently  and  pridefully 
bind  up  whatever  vice  or  folly  there  is  in 
them,  whatever  arrogance,  petulance,  or 
blind  incomprehensiveness,  into  one  bitter 
bundle  of  consecrated  myrrh.  Strange,  in 
creatures  born  to  be  Love  visible,  that 
where  they  can  know  least,  they  will  con- 
demn first,  and  think  to  recommend  them- 
selves to  their  Master,  by  crawling  up  the 
steps  of  His  judgment-throne  to  divide  it 
with  Him.  Strangest  of  all  that  they  should 
think  they  were  led  by  the  Spirit  of  the 
Comforter  into  habits  of  mind  which  have 
become  in  them  the  unmixed  elements  of 
home  discomfort;  and  that  they  dare  to 
turn  the  Household  Gods  of  Christianity 
into  ugly  idols  of  their  own;— spiritual  dolls, 
for  them  to  dress  according  to  their  caprice; 
and  from  which  their  husbands  must  turn 
away  in  grieved  contempt,  lest  they  should 
be  shrieked  at  for  breaking  them. 

I  believe,  then,  with  this  exception,  that 
a  girl's  education  should  be  nearly,  in  its 
course  and  material  of  study,  the  same  as 
110 


a  boy's;  but  quite  differently  directed.  A 
woman,  in  any  rank  of  life,  ought  to  know 
whatever  her  husband  is  likely  to  know,  but 
to  know  it  in  a  different  way.  His  com- 
mand of  it  should  be  foundational  and  pro- 
gressive; hers,  general  and  accomplished  for 
daily  and  helpful  use.  Not  but  that  it 
would  often  be  wiser  in  men  to  learn  things 
in  a  womanly  sort  of  way,  for  present  use, 
and  to  seek  for  the  discipline  and  training 
of  their  mental  powers  in  such  branches  of 
study  as  will  be  afterwards  fittest  for  social 
service;  but,  speaking  broadly,  a  man  ought 
to  know  any  language  or  science  he  learns, 
thoroughly— while  a  woman  ought  to  know 
the  same  language,  or  science,  only  so  far 
as  may  enable  her  to  sympathize  in  her 
husband's  pleasures,  and  in  those  of  his 
best  friends. 

Yet,  observe,  with  exquisite  accuracy  as 
far  as  she  reaches.  There  is  a  wide  differ- 
ence between  elementary  knowledge  and 
superficial  knowledge— between  a  firm  be- 
ginning, and  an  infirm  attempt  at  compass- 
ing. A  woman  may  always  help  her  hus- 
band by  what  she  knows,  however  little;  by 
what  she  half  knows,  or  misknows,  she 
will  only  tease  him. 

And  indeed,  if  there  were  to  be  any  differ- 
ence between  a  girl's  education  and  a  boy's, 
111 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


I  should  say  that  of  the  two  the  girl  should 
be  earlier  led,  as  her  intellect  ripens  faster, 
into  deep  and  serious  subjects:  and  that  her 
range  of  literature  should  be,  not  more,  but 
less  frivolous;  calculated  to  add  the  quali- 
ties of  patience  and  seriousness  to  her  natu- 
ral poignancy  of  thought  and  quickness  of 
wit;  and  also  to  keep  her  in  a  lofty  and  pure 
element  of  thought.  I  enter  not  now  into 
any  question  of  choice  of  books;  only  let  us 
be  sure  that  her  books  are  not  heaped  up  in 
her  lap  as  they  fall  out  of  the  package  of 
the  circulating  library,  wet  with  the  last 
and  lightest  spray  of  the  fountain  of  folly. 

Or  even  of  the  fountain  of  wit;  for  with 
respect  to  the  sore  temptation  of  novel-read- 
ing, it  is  not  the  badness  of  a  novel  that  we 
should  dread,  so  much  as  its  overwrought 
interest.  The  weakest  romance  is  not  so 
stupefying  as  the  lower  forms  of  religious 
exciting  literature,  and  the  worst  romance 
is  not  so  corrupting  as  false  history,  false 
philosophy,  or  false  political  essays.  But 
the  best  romance  becomes  dangerous  if, 
by  its  excitement,  it  renders  the  ordinary 
course  of  life  uninteresting,  and  increases 
the  morbid  thirst  for  useless  acquaintance 
with  scenes  in  which  we  shall  never  be 
called  upon  to  act. 

I  speak  therefore  of  good  novels  only; 
112 


OF  QUEENS'   GARDENS 


and  our  modern  literature  is  particularly 
rich  in  types  of  such.  Well  read,  indeed, 
these  books  have  serious  use,  being  nothing 
less  than  treatises  on  moral  anatomy  and 
chemistry;  studies  of  human  nature  in  the 
elements  of  it.  But  I  attach  little  weight 
to  this  function:  they  are  hardly  ever  read 
with  earnestness  enough  to  permit  them  to 
fulfil  it.  The  utmost  they  usually  do  is  to 
enlarge  somewhat  the  charity  of  a  kind 
reader,  or  the  bitterness  of  a  malicious  one; 
for  each  will  gather,  from  the  novel,  food 
for  her  own  disposition.  Those  who  are 
naturally  proud  and  envious  will  learn  from 
Thackeray  to  despise  humanity;  those  who 
are  naturally  gentle,  to  pity  it;  those  who 
are  naturally  shallow,  to  laugh  at  it.  So, 
also,  there  might  be  a  serviceable  power  in 
novels  to  bring  before  us,  in  vividness,  a 
human  truth  which  we  had  before  dimly 
conceived;  but  the  temptation  to  pictur- 
esqueness  of  statement  is  so  great  that 
often  the  best  writers  of  fiction  cannot 
resist  it;  and  our  views  are  rendered  so  vio- 
lent and  one-sided  that  their  vitality  is 
rather  a  harm  than  good. 

Without,  however,  venturing  here  on  any 

attempt  at  decision  how  much  novel-reading 

should  be  allowed,  let  me  at  least  clearly 

assert  this, — that  whether  novels,  or  poetry, 

8  113 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


or  history  be  read,  they  should  be  chosen, 
not  for  their  freedom  from  evil,  but  for 
their  possession  of  good.  The  chance  and 
scattered  evil  that  may  here  and  there 
haunt,  or  hide  itself  in,  a  powerful  book, 
never  does  any  harm  to  a  noble  girl;  but 
the  emptiness  of  an  author  oppresses  her, 
and  his  amiable  folly  degrades  her.  And  if 
she  can  have  access  to  a  good  library  of 
old  and  classical  books,  there  need  be  no 
choosing  at  all.  Keep  the  modern  magazine 
and  novel  out  of  your  girl's  way:  turn  her 
loose  into  the  old  library  every  wet  day,  and 
let  her  alone.  She  will  find  what  is  good 
for  her;  you  cannot:  for  there  is  just  this 
difference  between  the  making  of  a  girl's 
character  and  a  boy's— you  may  chisel  a  boy 
into  shape,  as  you  would  a  rock,  or  hammer 
him  into  it,  if  he  be  of  a  better  kind,  as  you 
would  a  piece  of  bronze.  But  you  cannot 
hammer  a  girl  into  anything.  She  grows 
as  a  flower  does,— she  will  wither  without 
sun;  she  will  decay  in  her  sheath,  as  a 
narcissus  will,  if  you  do  not  give  her  air 
enough;  she  may  fall,  and  defile  her  head  in 
dust,  if  you  leave  her  without  help  at  some 
moments  of  her  life;  but  you  cannot  fetter 
her;  she  must  take  her  own  fair  form  and 
way,  if  she  take  any,  and  in  mind  as  in 
body  must  have  always 
114 


OF  QUEENS'   GARDENS 


Her  household  motions  light  and  free 
And  steps  of  virgin  liberty. 

Let  her  loose  in  the  library,  I  say,  as  you 
do  a  fawn  in  a  field.  It  knows  the  bad 
weeds  twenty  times  better  than  you;  and  the 
good  ones  too,  and  will  eat  some  bitter  and 
prickly  ones,  good  for  it,  which  you  had  not 
the  slightest  thought  would  have  been  so. 
Then,  in  art,  keep  the  finest  models  before 
her,  and  let  her  practice  in  all  accomplish- 
ments be  accurate  and  thorough,  so  as  to 
enable  her  to  understand  more  than  she 
accomplishes.  I  say  the  finest  models— 
that  is  to  say,  the  truest,  simplest,  useful- 
est.  Note  those  epithets:  they  will  range 
through  all  the  arts.  Try  them  in  music, 
where  you  might  think  them  the  least 
applicable.  I  say  the  truest,  that  in  which 
the  notes  most  closely  and  faithfully  ex- 
press the  meaning  of  the  words,  or  the  char- 
acter of  intended  emotion;  again,  the  sim- 
plest, that  in  which  the  meaning  and  melody 
are  attained  with  the  fewest  and  most  sig- 
nificant notes  possible;  and,  finally,  the  use- 
fulest,  that  music  which  makes  the  best 
words  most  beautiful,  which  enchants  them 
in  our  memories  each  with  its  own  glory 
of  sound,  and  which  applies  them  closest 
to  the  heart  at  the  moment  we  need  them. 
115 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 


And  not  only  in  the  material  and  in  the 
course,  but  yet  more  earnestly  in  the  spirit 
of  it,  let  a  girl's  education  be  as  serious  as 
a  boy's.  You  bring  up  your  girls  as  if  they 
were  meant  for  sideboard  ornaments,  and 
then  complain  of  their  frivolity.  Give  them 
the  same  advantages  that  you  give  their 
brothers— appeal  to  the  same  grand  in- 
stincts of  virtue  in  them;  teach  them,  also, 
that  courage  and  truth  are  the  pillars  of 
their  being:— do  you  think  that  they  would 
not  answer  that  appeal,  brave  and  true  as 
they  are  even  now,  when  you  know  that 
there  is  hardly  a  girls'  school  in  this  Chris- 
tian kingdom  where  the  children's  courage 
or  sincerity  would  be  thought  of  half  so 
much  importance  as  their  way  of  coming  in 
at  a  door;  and  when  the  whole  system  of 
society,  as  respects  the  mode  of  establishing 
them  in  life,  is  one  rotten  plague  of  coward- 
ice and  imposture— cowardice,  in  not  dar- 
ing to  let  them  live,  or  love,  except  as 
their  neighbors  choose;  and  imposture,  in 
bringing,  for  the  purposes  of  our  own 
pride,  the  full  glow  of  the  world's  worst 
vanity  upon  a  girl's  eyes,  at  the  very  period 
when  the  whole  happiness  of  her  future 
existence  depends  upon  her  remaining  un- 
dazzled? 

And  give  them,  lastly,  not  only  noble 
116 


OF   QUEENS'   GARDENS 


teachings,  but  noble  teachers.  You  con- 
sider somewhat,  before  you  send  your  boy 
to  school,  what  kind  of  a  man  the  master 
is;— whatsoever  kind  of  a  man  he  is,  you  at 
least  give  him  full  authority  over  your  son, 
and  show  some  respect  to  him  yourself ;— if 
he  comes  to  dine  with  you,  you  do  not  put 
him  at  a  side  table.  You  know  also  that,  at 
college,  your  child's  immediate  tutor  will  be 
under  the  direction  of  some  still  higher 
tutor,  for  whom  you  have  absolute  rever- 
ence. You  do  not  treat  the  Dean  of  Christ 
Church  or  the  Master  of  Trinity  as  your 
inferiors. 

But  what  teachers  do  you  give  your  girls, 
and  what  reverence  do  you  show  to  the 
teachers  you  have  chosen?  Is  a  girl  likely 
to  think  her  own  conduct,  or  her  own  in- 
tellect, of  much  importance,  when  you  trust 
the  entire  formation  of  her  character,  moral 
and  intellectual,  to  a  person  whom  you  let 
your  servants  treat  with  less  respect  than 
they  do  your  housekeeper  (as  if  the  soul  of 
your  child  were  a  less  charge  than  jams 
and  groceries),  and  whom  you  yourself  think 
you  confer  an  honor  upon  by  letting  her 
sometimes  sit  in  the  drawing-room  in  the 
evening? 

Thus,  then,  of  literature  as  her  help,  and 
thus  of  art.  There  is  one  more  help  which 
117 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 


she  cannot  do  without— one  which,  alone, 
has  sometimes  done  more  than  all  other 
influences  besides,— the  help  of  wild  and 
fair  nature.  Hear  this  of  the  education  of 
Joan  of  Arc: 

The  education  of  this  poor  girl  was  mean, 
according  to  the  present  standard  ;  was  ineffably 
grand,  according  to  a  purer  philosophic  standard ; 
and  only  not  good  for  our  age,  because  for  us  it 
would  be  unattainable.  .  .  . 

Next  after  her  spiritual  advantages,  she  owed 
most  to  the  advantages  of  her  situation.  The 
fountain  of  Domr6my  was  on  the  brink  of  a  bound- 
less forest ;  and  it  was  haunted  to  that  degree  by 
fairies  that  the  parish  priest  (curd)  was  obliged 
to  read  mass  there  once  a  year,  in  order  to  keep 
them  in  decent  bounds.  .  .  . 

But  the  forests  of  Domr6my  —  those  were  the 
glories  of  the  land  ;  for  in  them  abode  mysterious 
powers  and  ancient  secrets  that  towered  into 
tragic  strength.  Abbeys  there  were,  and  abbey 
windows, —  "like  Moorish  temples  of  the  Hin- 
dus," that  exercised  even  princely  power  both 
in  Touraine  and  in  the  German  Diets.  These  had 
their  sweet  bells  that  pierced  the  forests  for  many 
a  league  at  matins  or  vespers,  and  each  its  own 
dreamy  legend.  Few  enough,  and  scattered 
enough,  were  these  abbeys,  so  as  in  no  degree  to 
disturb  the  deep  solitude  of  the  region ;  yet 
many  enough  to  spread  a  network  or  awning  of 
Christian  sanctity  over  what  else  might  have 
seemed  a  heathen  wilderness.1 

i  "Joan  of  Arc:  in  reference  to  M.  Michelet's  'History  of 
France.' "  De  Quincey's  Works.  Vol.  ill.  p.  217. 

118 


OF   QUEENS'   GARDENS 


Now,  you  cannot,  indeed,  have  here  in 
England  woods  eighteen  miles  deep  to  the 
center;  but  you  can,  perhaps,  keep  a  fairy 
or  two  for  your  children  yet,  if  you  wish  to 
keep  them.  But  do  you  wish  it?  Suppose 
you  had  each,  at  the  back  of  your  houses, 
a  garden,  large  enough  for  your  children  to 
play  in,  with  just  as  much  lawn  as  would 
give  them  room  to  run,— no  more,— and 
that  you  could  not  change  your  abode;  but 
that,  if  you  chose,  you  could  double  your  in- 
come, or  quadruple  it,  by  digging  a  coal- 
shaft  in  the  middle  of  the  lawn,  and  turning 
the  flower-beds  into  heaps  of  coke.  Would 
you  do  it?  I  hope  not.  I  can  tell  you,  you 
would  be  wrong  if  you  did,  though  it  gave 
you  income  sixtyfold  instead  of  fourfold. 

Yet  this  is  what  you  are  doing  with  all 
England.  The  whole  country  is  but  a  little 
garden,  not  more  than  enough  for  your 
children  to  run  on  the  lawns  of,  if  you 
would  let  them  all  run  there.  And  this 
little  garden  you  will  turn  into  furnace 
ground,  and  fill  with  heaps  of  cinders,  if  you 
can;  and  those  children  of  yours,  not  you, 
will  suffer  for  it.  For  the  fairies  will  not  be 
all  banished;  there  are  fairies  of  the  furnace 
as  of  the  wood,  and  their  first  gifts  seem  to 
be  "  sharp  arrows  of  the  mighty  ";  but  their 
last  gifts  are  "coals  of  juniper." 
119 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


And  yet  I  cannot— though  there  is  no 
part  of  my  subject  that  I  feel  more— press 
this  upon  you;  for  we  made  so  little  use  of 
the  power  of  nature  while  we  had  it  that  we 
shall  hardly  feel  what  we  have  lost.  Just 
on  the  other  side  of  the  Mersey  you  have 
your  Snowdon,  and  your  Menai  Straits,  and 
that  mighty  granite  rock  beyond  the  moors 
of  Anglesea,  splendid  in  its  heathery  crest, 
and  foot  planted  in  the  deep  sea,  once 
thought  of  as  sacred— a  divine  promontory, 
looking  westward;  the  Holy  Head  or  Head- 
land, still  not  without  awe  when  its  red 
light  glares  first  through  storm.  These 
are  the  hills,  and  these  the  bays  and  blue 
inlets,  which,  among  the  Greeks,  would 
have  been  always  loved,  always  fateful  in 
influence  on  the  national  mind.  That  Snow- 
don is  your  Parnassus;  but  where  are  its 
Muses?  That  Holyhead  mountain  is  your 
Island  of  JEgina;  but  where  is  its  Temple  to 
Minerva? 

Shall  I  read  you  what  the  Christian  Mi- 
nerva had  achieved  under  the  shadow  of  our 
Parnassus  up  to  the  year  1848?— Here  is  a 
little  account  of  a  Welsh  school,  from  page 
261  of  the  Report  on  Wales,  published  by 
the  Committee  of  Council  on  Education. 
This  is  a  school  close  to  a  town  containing 
5000  persons: 

120 


OF  QUEENS'   GARDENS 


I  then  called  up  a  larger  class,  most  of  whom 
had  recently  come  to  the  school.  Three  girls  re- 
peatedly declared  they  had  never  heard  of  Christ, 
and  two  that  they  had  never  heard  of  God.  Two 
out  of  six  thought  Christ  was  on  earth  now  [they 
might  have  had  a  worse  thought  perhaps],  three 
knew  nothing  about  the  Crucifixion.  Four  out 
of  seven  did  not  know  the  names  of  the  months 
nor  the  number  of  days  in  a  year.  They  had  no 
notion  of  addition  beyond  two  and  two,  or  three 
and  three ;  their  minds  were  perfect  blanks. 

Oh,  ye  women  of  England !  from  the  Prin- 
cess of  that  Wales  to  the  simplest  of  you, 
do  not  think  your  own  children  can  he 
brought  into  their  true  fold  of  rest,  while 
these  are  scattered  on  the  hills,  as  sheep 
having  no  shepherd.  And  do  not  think 
your  daughters  can  he  trained  to  the  truth 
of  their  own  human  beauty,  while  the  pleas- 
ant places,  which  God  made  at  once  for 
their  school-room  and  their  playground,  lie 
desolate  and  defiled.  You  cannot  baptize 
them  rightly  in  those  inch-deep  fonts  of 
yours,  unless  you  baptize  them  also  in  the 
sweet  waters  which  the  great  Lawgiver 
strikes  forth  forever  from  the  rocks  of  your 
native  land— waters  which  a  Pagan  would 
have  worshiped  in  their  purity,  and  you 
worship  only  with  pollution.  You  cannot 
lead  your  children  faithfully  to  those  nar- 
row ax-hewn  church  altars  of  yours,  while 
121 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 


the  dark  azure  altars  in  heaven— the  moun- 
tains that  sustain  your  island  throne,— 
mountains  on  which  a  Pagan  would  have 
seen  the  powers  of  heaven  rest  in  every 
wreathed  cloud,— remain  for  you  without 
inscription;  altars  built,  not  to,  but  by  an 
Unknown  God. 

III.  Thus  far,  then,  of  the  nature,  thus 
far  of  the  teaching,  of  woman,  and  thus  of 
her  household  office,  and  queenliness.  We 
now  come  to  our  last,  our  widest  question. 
—What  is  her  queenly  office  with  respect 
to  the  state? 

Generally,  we  are  under  an  impression 
that  a  man's  duties  are  public,  and  a 
woman's  private.  But  this  is  not  altogether 
so.  A  man  has  a  personal  work  or  duty, 
relating  to  his  own  home,  and  a  public  work 
or  duty,  which  is  the  expansion  of  the  other, 
relating  to  the  state.  So  a  woman  has  a 
personal  work  or  duty,  relating  to  her  own 
home,  and  a  public  work  or  duty,  which  is 
also  the  expansion  of  that. 

Now  the  man's  work  for  his  own  home 
is,  as  has  been  said,  to  secure  its  mainte- 
nance, progress,  and  defense;  the  woman's 
to  secure  its  order,  comfort,  and  loveliness. 

Expand  both  these  functions.  The  man's 
duty,  as  a  member  of  a  commonwealth,  is  to 
assist  in  the  maintenance,  in  the  advance,  in 
122 


OF   QUEENS'   GARDENS 


the  defense  of  the  state.  The  woman's 
duty,  as  a  member  of  the  commonwealth,  is 
to  assist  in  the  ordering,  in  the  comforting, 
and  in  the  beautiful  adornment  of  the  state. 

What  the  man  is  at  his  own  gate,  defend- 
ing it,  if  need  be,  against  insult  and  spoil, 
that  also,  not  in  a  less,  but  in  a  more  de- 
voted measure,  he  is  to  be  at  the  gate  of 
his  country,  leaving  his  home,  if  need  be, 
even  to  the  spoiler,  to  do  his  more  incum- 
bent work  there. 

And,  in  like  manner,  what  the  woman  is 
to  be  within  her  gates,  as  the  center  of 
order,  the  balm  of  distress,  and  the  mirror 
of  beauty:  that  she  is  also  to  be  without  her 
gates,  where  order  is  more  difficult,  distress 
more  imminent,  loveliness  more  rare. 

And  as  within  the  human  heart  there  is 
always  set  an  instinct  for  all  its  real  duties, 
—an  instinct  which  you  cannot  quench,  but 
only  warp  and  corrupt  if  you  withdraw  it 
from  its  true  purpose:— as  there  is  the  in- 
tense instinct  of  love,  which,  rightly  disci- 
plined, maintains  all  the  sanctities  of  life, 
and,  misdirected,  undermines  them;  and 
must  do  either  the  one  or  the  other;— so 
there  is  in  the  human  heart  an  inextin- 
guishable instinct,  the  love  of  power,  which, 
rightly  directed,  maintains  all  the  majesty  of 
law  and  life,  and,  misdirected,  wrecks  them. 
123 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


Deep  rooted  in  the  innermost  life  of  the 
heart  of  man,  and  of  the  heart  of  woman, 
God  set  it  there,  and  God  keeps  it  there. 
—Vainly,  as  falsely,  you  blame  or  rebuke 
the  desire  of  power!— For  Heaven's  sake, 
and  for  Man's  sake,  desire  it  all  you  can. 
But  what  power?  That  is  all  the  question. 
Power  to  destroy?  the  lion's  limb,  and  the 
dragon's  breath?  Not  so.  Power  to  heal, 
to  redeem,  to  guide,  and  to  guard.  Power 
of  the  scepter  and  shield;  the  power  of  the 
royal  hand  that  heals  in  touching,— that 
binds  the  fiend,  and  looses  the  captive;  the 
throne  that  is  founded  on  the  rock  of  Jus- 
tice, and  descended  from  only  by  steps  of 
Mercy.  Will  you  not  covet  such  power  as 
this,  and  seek  such  throne  as  this,  and  be 
no  more  housewives,  but  queens? 

It  is  now  long  since  the  women  of  Eng- 
land arrogated,  universally,  a  title  which 
once  belonged  to  nobility  only;  and,  having 
once  been  in  the  habit  of  accepting  the  sim- 
ple title  of  gentlewoman  as  correspondent  to 
that  of  gentleman,  insisted  on  the  privilege 
of  assuming  the  title  of  "  Lady," l  which  prop- 
erly corresponds  only  to  the  title  of  "  Lord." 

1 1  wish  there  were  a  true  order  of  chivalry  instituted  for 
our  English  youth  of  certain  ranks,  in  which  both  boy  and 
girl  should  receive,  at  a  given  age,  their  knighthood  and 
ladyhood  by  true  title ;  attainable  only  by  certain  probation 
and  trial  both  of  character  and  accomplishment ;  and  to  be 

124 


OF   QUEENS'   GARDENS 


I  do  not  blame  them  for  this;  but  only  for 
their  narrow  motive  in  this.  I  would  have 
them  desire  and  claim  the  title  of  Lady, 
provided  they  claim,  not  merely  the  title, 
but  the  office  and  duty  signified  by  it.  Lady 
means  "  bread-giver  "  or  "  loaf -giver,"  and 
Lord  means  "  maintainer  of  laws,"  and  both 
titles  have  reference,  not  to  the  law  which 
is  maintained  in  the  house,  nor  to  the  bread 
which  is  given  to  the  household;  but  to  law 
maintained  for  the  multitude,  and  to  bread 
broken  among  the  multitude.  So  that  a 
Lord  has  legal  claim  only  to  his  title  in  so 
far  as  he  is  the  maintainer  of  the  justice  of 
the  Lord  of  lords;  and  a  Lady  has  legal 
claim  to  her  title  only  so  far  as  she  com- 
municates that  help  to  the  poor  represen- 
tatives of  her  Master,  which  women  once, 
ministering  to  Him  of  their  substance,  were 
permitted  to  extend  to  that  Master  Him- 
self; and  when  she  is  known,  as  He  Himself 
once  was,  in  breaking  of  bread. 

And  this  beneficent  and  legal  dominion, 
this  power  of  the  Dominus,  or  House-Lord, 
and  of  the  Domina,  or  House-Lady,  is  great 
and  venerable,  not  in  the  number  of  those 

forfeited,  on  conviction,  by  their  peers,  of  any  dishonorable 
act.  Such  an  institution  would  be  entirely,  and  with  all 
noble  results,  possible,  in  a  nation  which  loved  honor. 
That  it  would  not  be  possible  among  us,  is  not  to  the  dis- 
credit of  the  scheme. 

125 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


through  whom  it  has  lineally  descended, 
but  in  the  number  of  those  whom  it  grasps 
within  its  sway;  it  is  always  regarded  with 
reverent  worship  wherever  its  dynasty  is 
founded  on  its  duty,  and  its  ambition  co- 
relative  with  its  beneficence.  Your  fancy 
is  pleased  with  the  thought  of  being  noble 
ladies,  with  a  train  of  vassals.  Be  it  so; 
you  cannot  be  too  noble,  and  your  train  can- 
not be  too  great;  but  see  to  it  that  your 
train  is  of  vassals  whom  you  serve  and  feed, 
not  merely  of  slaves  who  serve  and  feed 
you;  and  that  the  multitude  which  obeys 
you  is  of  those  whom  you  have  comforted, 
not  oppressed,— whom  you  have  redeemed, 
not  led  into  captivity. 

And  this,  which  is  true  of  the  lower  or 
household  dominion,  is  equally  true  of  the 
queenly  dominion;  that  highest  dignity  is 
open  to  you,  if  you  will  also  accept  that 
highest  duty.  Rex  et  Regina— Roi  et  Reine 
— "Right-doers";  they  differ  but  from  the 
Lady  and  Lord,  in  that  their  power  is  su- 
preme over  the  mind  as  over  the  person— 
that  they  not  only  feed  and  clothe,  but  di- 
rect and  teach.  And  whether  consciously 
or  not,  you  must  be,  in  many  a  heart,  en- 
throned: there  is  no  putting  by  that  crown; 
queens  you  must  always  be:  queens  to  your 
lovers;  queens  to  your  husbands  and  your 
126 


OF   QUEENS'   GARDENS 


sons;  queens  of  higher  mystery  to  the  world 
beyond,  which  hows  itself,  and  will  forever 
bow,  before  the  myrtle  crown  and  the  stain- 
less scepter  of  womanhood.  But,  alas!  you 
are  too  often  idle  and  careless  queens, 
grasping  at  majesty  in  the  least  things, 
while  you  abdicate  it  in  the  greatest;  and 
leaving  misrule  and  violence  to  work  their 
will  among  men,  in  defiance  of  the  power 
which,  holding  straight  in  gift  from  the 
Prince  of  all  Peace,  the  wicked  among  you 
betray,  and  the  good  forget. 

"Prince  of  Peace."  Note  that  name. 
When  kings  rule  in  that  name,  and  nobles, 
and  the  judges  of  the  earth,  they  also,  in 
their  narrow  place,  and  mortal  measure, 
receive  the  power  of  it.  There  are  no  other 
rulers  than  they;  other  rule  than  theirs  is 
but  misrule;  they  who  govern  verily  "Dei 
Gratia"  are  all  princes,  yes,  or  princesses 
of  Peace.  There  is  not  a  war  in  the  world, 
no,  nor  an  injustice,  but  you  women  are 
answerable  for  it;  not  in  that  you  have  pro- 
voked, but  in  that  you  have  not  hindered. 
Men,  by  their  nature,  are  prone  to  fight; 
they  will  fight  for  any  cause,  or  for  none. 
It  is  for  you  to  choose  their  cause  for  them, 
and  to  forbid  them  when  there  is  no  cause. 
There  is  no  suffering,  no  injustice,  no  mis- 
ery, in  the  earth,  but  the  guilt  of  it  lies  with 
127 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


you.  Men  can  bear  the  sight  of  it,  but  you 
should  not  be  able  to  bear  it.  Men  may 
tread  it  down  without  sympathy  in  their 
own  struggle;  but  men  are  feeble  in  sym- 
pathy, and  contracted  in  hope;  it  is  you  only 
who  can  feel  the  depths  of  pain,  and  con- 
ceive the  way  of  its  healing.  Instead  of 
trying  to  do  this,  you  turn  away  from  it; 
you  shut  yourselves  within  your  park  walls 
and  garden  gates;  and  you  are  content  to 
know  that  there  is  beyond  them  a  whole 
world  in  wilderness— a  world  of  secrets 
which  you  dare  not  penetrate;  and  of  suf- 
fering which  you  dare  not  conceive. 

I  tell  you  that  this  is  to  me  quite  the 
most  amazing  among  the  phenomena  of 
humanity.  I  am  surprised  at  no  depths  to 
which,  when  once  warped  from  its  honor, 
that  humanity  can  be  degraded.  I  do  not 
wonder  at  the  miser's  death,  with  his  hands, 
as  they  relax,  dropping  gold.  I  do  not  won- 
der at  the  sensualist's  life,  with  the  shroud 
wrapped  about  his  feet.  I  do  not  wonder 
at  the  single-handed  murder  of  a  single 
victim,  done  by  the  assassin  in  the  darkness 
of  the  railway,  or  reed  shadow  of  the  marsh. 
I  do  not  even  wonder  at  the  myriad-handed 
murder  of  multitudes,  done  boastfully  in 
the  daylight,  by  the  frenzy  of  nations, 
and  the  immeasurable,  unimaginable  guilt 
128 


OF  QUEENS'    GARDENS 


heaped  up  from  hell  to  heaven,  of  their 
priests,  and  kings.  But  this  is  wonderful 
to  me— oh,  how  wonderful!— to  see  the 
tender  and  delicate  woman  among  you,  with 
her  child  at  her  breast,  and  a  power,  if  she 
would  wield  it,  over  it,  and  over  its  father, 
purer  than  the  air  of  heaven,  and  stronger 
than  the  seas  of  earth— nay,  a  magnitude 
of  blessing  which  her  husband  would  not 
part  with  for  all  that  earth  itself,  though  it 
were  made  of  one  entire  and  perfect  chrys- 
olite:—to  see  her  abdicate  this  majesty 
to  play  at  precedence  with  her  next-door 
neighbor!  This  is  wonderful — oh,  wonder- 
ful!—to  see  her,  with  every  innocent  feel- 
ing fresh  within  her,  go  out  in  the  morning 
into  her  garden  to  play  with  the  fringes  of 
its  guarded  flowers,  and  lift  their  heads 
when  they  are  drooping,  with  her  happy 
smile  upon  her  face,  and  no  cloud  upon  her 
brow,  because  there  is  a  little  wall  around 
her  place  of  peace:  and  yet  she  knows,  in 
her  heart,  if  she  would  only  look  for  its 
knowledge,  that,  outside  of  that  little  rose- 
covered  wall,  the  wild  grass,  to  the  horizon, 
is  torn  up  by  the  agony  of  men,  and  beat 
level  by  the  drift  of  their  life-blood. 

Have  you  ever  considered  what  a  deep 
under-meaning  there  lies,  or  at  least  may 
be  read,  if  we  choose,  in  our  custom  of 
9  129 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


strewing  flowers  before  those  whom  we 
think  most  happy?  Do  you  suppose  it  is 
merely  to  deceive  them  into  the  hope  that 
happiness  is  always  to  fall  thus  in  showers 
at  their  feet?— that  wherever  they  pass 
they  will  tread  on  herbs  of  sweet  scent,  and 
that  the  rough  ground  will  be  made  smooth 
for  them  by  depths  of  roses?  So  surely  as 
they  believe  that,  they  will  have,  instead, 
to  walk  on  bitter  herbs  and  thorns;  and  the 
only  softness  to  their  feet  will  be  of  snow. 
But  it  is  not  thus  intended  they  should  be- 
lieve; there  is  a  better  meaning  in  that  old 
custom.  The  path  of  a  good  woman  is  in- 
deed strewn  with  flowers;  but  they  rise  be- 
hind her  steps,  not  before  them.  "  Her  feet 
have  touched  the  meadows,  and  left  the 
daisies  rosy." 

You  think  that  only  a  lover's  fancy;— false 
and  vain!  How  if  it  could  be  true?  You 
think  this  also,  perhaps,  only  a  poet's 
fancy: 

Even  the  light  harebell  raised  its  head 
Elastic  from  her  airy  tread. 

But  it  is  little  to  say  of  a  woman,  that  she 
only  does  not  destroy  where  she  passes. 
She  should  revive;  the  harebells  should 
bloom,  not  stoop,  as  she  passes.  You  think 
I  am  rushing  into  wild  hyperbole!  Pardon 
130 


OF   QUEENS'   GARDENS 


me,  not  a  whit— I  mean  what  I  say  in  calm 
English,  spoken  in  resolute  truth.  You 
have  heard  it  said— (and  I  believe  there  is 
more  than  fancy  even  in  that  saying,  but 
let  it  pass  for  a  fanciful  one)— that  flowers 
only  flourish  rightly  in  the  garden  of  some 
one  who  loves  them.  I  know  you  would  like 
that  to  be  true;  you  would  think  it  a  pleas- 
ant magic  if  you  could  flush  your  flowers 
into  brighter  bloom  by  a  kind  look  upon 
them:  nay,  more,  if  your  look  had  the  power, 
not  only  to  cheer,  but  to  guard;— if  you 
could  bid  the  black  blight  turn  away,  and 
the  knotted  caterpillar  spare— if  you  could 
bid  the  dew  fall  upon  them  in  the  drought, 
and  say  to  the  south  wind,  in  frost—"  Come, 
thou  south,  and  breathe  upon  my  garden, 
that  the  spices  of  it  may  flow  out."  This 
you  would  think  a  great  thing?  And  do  you 
think  it  not  a  greater  thing,  that  all  this 
(and  how  much  more  than  this!)  you  can  do, 
for  fairer  flowers  than  these— flowers  that 
could  bless  you  for  having  blessed  them, 
and  will  love  you  for  having  loved  them; 
flowers  that  have  thoughts  like  yours,  and 
lives  like  yours;  and  which,  once  saved,  you 
save  forever?  Is  this  only  a  little  power? 
Far  among  the  moorlands  and  the  rocks,— 
far  in  the  darkness  of  the  terrible  streets, 
—these  feeble  florets  are  lying,  with  all 
131 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


their  fresh  leaves  torn,  and  their  stems 
broken:  will  you  never  go  down  to  them, 
nor  set  them  in  order  in  their  little  fragrant 
beds,  nor  fence  them,  in  their  trembling, 
from  the  fierce  wind?  Shall  morning  follow 
morning,  for  you,  but  not  for  them;  and  the 
dawn  rise  to  watch,  far  away,  those  frantic 
Dances  of  Death;1  but  no  dawn  rise  to 
breathe  upon  these  living  banks  of  wild 
violet,  and  woodbine,  and  rose;  nor  call  to 
you,  through  your  casement— call  (not  giv- 
ing you  the  name  of  the  English  poet's  lady, 
but  the  name  of  Dante's  great  Matilda, 
who,  on  the  edge  of  happy  Lethe,  stood, 
wreathing  flowers  with  flowers),  saying: 

Come  into  the  garden,  Maud, 

For  the  black  bat",  night,  has  flown, 

And  the  woodbine  spices  are  wafted  abroad, 

And  the  musk  of  the  roses  blown  ? 

Will  you  not  go  down  among  them?— 
among  those  sweet  living  things,  whose 
new  courage,  sprung  from  the  earth  with 
the  deep  color  of  heaven  upon  it,  is  starting 
up  in  strength  of  goodly  spire;  and  whose 
purity,  washed  from  the  dust,  is  opening, 
bud  by  bud,  into  the  flower  of  promise;— 
and  still  they  turn  to  you,  and  for  you, 

>  See  note,  p.  59. 

132 


OP  QUEENS'   GARDENS 


"The    Larkspur    listens— I   hear,  I    hear! 
And  the  Lily  whispers— I  wait." 

Did  you  notice  that  I  missed  two  lines 
when  I  read  you  that  first  stanza;  and  think 
that  I  had  forgotten  them?  Hear  them 
now: 

Come  into  the  garden,  Maud, 
For  the  black  bat,  night,  has  flown, 
Come  into  the  garden,  Maud, 
I  am  here  at  the  gate,  alone. 

Who  is  it,  think  you,  who  stands  at  the 
gate  of  this  sweeter  garden  alone,  waiting 
for  you?  Did  you  ever  hear,  not  of  a  Maud, 
hut  a  Madeleine,  who  went  down  to  her 
garden  in  the  dawn,  and  found  One  wait- 
ing at  the  gate,  whom  she  supposed  to  be 
the  gardener?  Have  you  not  sought  Him 
often;— sought  Him  in  vain,  all  through 
the  night;— sought  Him  in  vain  at  the  gate 
of  that  old  garden  where  the  fiery  sword  is 
set?  He  is  never  there;  but  at  the  gate  of 
this  garden  He  is  waiting  always— waiting 
to  take  your  hand— ready  to  go  down  to 
see  the  fruits  of  the  valley,  to  see  whether 
the  vine  has  flourished,  and  the  pomegran- 
ate budded.  There  you  shall  see  with  Him 
the  little  tendrils  of  the  vines  that  His  hand 
is  guiding— there  you  shall  see  the  pome- 
granate springing  where  His  hand  cast  the 
133 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 


sanguine  seed;— more:  you  shall  see  the 
troops  of  the  angel  keepers  that,  with  their 
wings,  wave  away  the  hungry  birds  from 
the  pathsides  where  He  has  sown,  and  call 
to  each  other  between  the  vineyard  rows, 
"Take  us  the  foxes,  the  little  foxes,  that 
spoil  the  vines,  for  our  vines  have  tender 
grapes."  Oh— you  queens— you  queens! 
among  the  hills  and  happy  greenwood  of 
this  land  of  yours,  shall  the  foxes  have 
holes,  and  the  birds  of  the  air  have  nests; 
and  in  your  cities,  shall  the  stones  cry  out 
against  you,  that  they  are  the  only  pillows 
where  the  Son  of  Man  can  lay  His  head? 


134 


LECTURE  III 

THE  MYSTERY  OP  LIFE 
AND  ITS  ARTS 


LECTURE 
III 

THE  MYSTERY  OF  LIFE  AND  ITS  ARTS 


Lecture  delivered  in  the  theater  of  the  Royal 
College  of  Science,  Dublin,  1868. 


WHEN  I  accepted  the  privilege  of 
addressing  you  to-day,  I  was  not 
aware  of  a  restriction  with  re- 
spect to  the  topics  of  discussion  which  may 
be  brought  before  this  Society 1— a  restric- 
tion which,  though  entirely  wise  and  right 
under  the  circumstances  contemplated  in 
its  introduction,  would  necessarily  have  dis- 
abled me,  thinking  as  I  think,  from  prepar- 
ing any  lecture  for  you  on  the  subject  of 
art  in  a  form  which  might  be  permanently 
useful.  Pardon  me,  therefore,  in  so  far  as 
I  must  trangress  such  limitation;  for  in- 
deed my  infringement  will  be  of  the  letter 
—  not  of  the  spirit— of  your  commands.  In 
whatever  I  may  say  touching  the  religion 
which  has  been  the  foundation  of  art,  or 
the  policy  which  has  contributed  to  its 
power,  if  I  offend  one,  I  shall  offend  all;  for 

1  That  no  reference  should  be  made  to  religious  questions. 

137 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


I  shall  take  no  note  of  any  separations  in 
creeds,  or  antagonisms  in  parties:  neither 
do  I  fear  that  ultimately  I  shall  offend  any, 
by  proving— or  at  least  stating  as  capable 
of  positive  proof —the  connection  of  all  that 
is  best  in  the  crafts  and  arts  of  man,  with 
the  simplicity  of  his  faith,  and  the  sincerity 
of  his  patriotism. 

But  I  speak  to  you  under  another  disad- 
vantage, by  which  I  am  checked  in  frank- 
ness of  utterance,  not  here  only,  but  every- 
where: namely,  that  I  am  never  fully  aware 
how  far  my  audiences  are  disposed  to  give 
me  credit  for  real  knowledge  of  my  subject, 
or  how  far  they  grant  me  attention  only 
because  I  have  been  sometimes  thought  an 
ingenious  or  pleasant  essayist  upon  it. 
For  I  have  had  what,  in  many  respects,  I 
boldly  call  the  misfortune,  to  set  my  words 
sometimes  prettily  together;  not  without  a 
foolish  vanity  in  the  poor  knack  that  I  had 
of  doing  so:  until  I  was  heavily  punished 
for  this  pride,  by  finding  that  many  people 
thought  of  the  words  only,  and  cared  no- 
thing for  their  meaning.  Happily,  there- 
fore, the  power  of  using  such  pleasant  lan- 
guage—if indeed  it  ever  were  mine— is 
passing  away  from  me;  and  whatever  I  am 
now  able  to  say  at  all,  I  find  myself  forced 
to  say  with  great  plainness.  For  my 
138 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  LIFE  AND  ITS  ARTS 

thoughts  have  changed  also,  as  my  words 
have;  and  whereas  in  earlier  life,  what  little 
influence  I  obtained  was  due  perhaps  chiefly 
to  the  enthusiasm  with  which  I  was  able  to 
dwell  on  the  beauty  of  the  physical  clouds, 
and  of  their  colors  in  the  sky;  so  all  the  in- 
fluence I  now  desire  to  retain  must  be  due 
to  the  earnestness  with  which  I  am  en- 
deavoring to  trace  the  form  and  beauty  of 
another  kind  of  cloud  than  those;  the  bright 
cloud  of  which  it  is  written— "What  is  your 
life?  It  is  even  as  a  vapor,  that  appeareth 
for  a  little  time,  and  then  vanisheth  away." 
I  suppose  few  people  reach  the  middle  or 
latter  period  of  their  age,  without  having, 
at  some  moment  of  change  or  disappoint- 
ment, felt  the  truth  of  those  bitter  words; 
and  been  startled  by  the  fading  of  the  sun- 
shine from  the  cloud  of  their  life  into  the 
sudden  agony  of  the  knowledge  that  the 
fabric  of  it  was  as  fragile  as  a  dream,  and 
the  endurance  of  it  as  transient  as  the  dew. 
But  it  is  not  always  that,  even  at  such 
times  of  melancholy  surprise,  we  can  enter 
into  any  true  perception  that  this  human 
life  shares  in  the  nature  of  it,  not  only  the 
evanescence,  but  the  mystery  of  the  cloud; 
that  its  avenues  are  wreathed  in  darkness, 
and  its  forms  and  courses  no  less  fantastic, 
than  spectral  and  obscure;  so  that  not  only 
139 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


in  the  vanity  which  we  cannot  grasp,  but  in 
the  shadow  which  we  cannot  pierce,  it  is 
true  of  this  cloudy  life  of  ours,  that  "man 
walketh  in  a  vain  shadow,  and  disquieteth 
himself  in  vain." 

And  least  of  all,  whatever  may  have  been 
the  eagerness  of  our  passions,  or  the  height 
of  our  pride,  are  we  able  to  understand  in 
its  depth  the  third  and  most  solemn  char- 
acter in  which  our  life  is  like  those  clouds 
of  heaven;  that  to  it  belongs  not  only  their 
transcience,  not  only  their  mystery,  but 
also  their  power;  that  in  the  cloud  of  the 
human  soul  there  is  a  fire  stronger  than 
the  lightning,  and  a  grace  more  precious 
than  the  rain;  and  that  though  of  the  good 
and  evil  it  shall  one  day  be  said  alike,  that 
the  place  that  knew  them  knows  them  no 
more,  there  is  an  infinite  separation  be- 
tween those  whose  brief  presence  had  there 
been  a  blessing,  like  the  mist  of  Eden  that 
went  up  from  the  earth  to  water  the  gar- 
den, and  those  whose  place  knew  them  only 
as  a  drifting  and  changeful  shade,  of  whom 
the  heavenly  sentence  is,  that  they  are 
"wells  without  water;  clouds  that  are  car- 
ried with  a  tempest,  to  whom  the  mist  of 
darkness  is  reserved  forever." 

To  those  among  us,  however,  who  have 
lived  long  enough  to  form  some  just  esti- 
140 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  LIFE  AND  ITS  ARTS 

mate  of  the  rate  of  the  changes  which  are, 
hour  by  hour  in  accelerating  catastrophe, 
manifesting  themselves  in  the  laws,  the 
arts,  and  the  creeds  of  men,  it  seems  to  me 
that  now  at  least,  if  never  at  any  former 
time,  the  thoughts  of  the  true  nature  of 
our  life,  and  of  its  powers  and  responsibili- 
ties, should  present  themselves  with  abso- 
lute sadness  and  sternness.  And  although 
I  know  that  this  feeling  is  much  deepened 
in  my  own  mind  by  disappointment,  which, 
by  chance,  has  attended  the  greater  num- 
ber of  my  cherished  purposes,  I  do  not 
for  that  reason  distrust  the  feeling  itself, 
though  I  am  on  my  guard  against  an  exag- 
gerated degree  of  it:  nay,  I  rather  believe 
that  in  periods  of  new  effort  and  violent 
change,  disappointment  is  a  wholesome 
medicine;  and  that  in  the  secret  of  it,  as  in 
the  twilight  so  beloved  by  Titian,  we  may 
see  the  colors  of  things  with  deeper  truth 
than  in  the  most  dazzling  sunshine.  And 
because  these  truths  about  the  works  of 
men,  which  I  want  to  bring  to-day  before 
you,  are  most  of  them  sad  ones,  though  at 
the  same  time  helpful;  and  because  also  I 
believe  that  your  kind  Irish  hearts  will  an- 
swer more  gladly  to  the  truthful  expression 
of  a  personal  feeling  than  to  the  exposition 
of  an  abstract  principle,  I  will  permit  my- 
141 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


self  so  much  unreserved  speaking  of  my 
own  causes  of  regret,  as  may  enable  you  to 
make  just  allowance  for  what,  according  to 
your  sympathies,  you  will  call  either  the 
bitterness,  or  the  insight,  of  a  mind  which 
has  surrendered  its  best  hopes,  and  been 
foiled  in  its  favorite  aims. 

I  spent  the  ten  strongest  years  of  my  life 
(from  twenty  to  thirty)  in  endeavoring  to 
show  the  excellence  of  the  work  of  the  man 
whom  I  believed,  and  rightly  believed,  to 
be  the  greatest  painter  of  the  schools  of 
England  since  Reynolds.  I  had  then  per- 
fect faith  in  the  power  of  every  great  truth 
of  beauty  to  prevail  ultimately,  and  take  its 
right  place  in  usefulness  and  honor;  and  I 
strove  to  bring  the  painter's  work  into  this 
due  place,  while  the  painter  was  yet  alive. 
But  he  knew,  better  than  I,  the  uselessness 
of  talking  about  what  people  could  not  see 
for  themselves.  He  always  discouraged  me 
scornfully,  even  when  he  thanked  me— and 
he  died  before  even  the  superficial  effect  of 
my  work  was  visible.  I  went  on,  however, 
thinking  I  could  at  least  be  of  use  to  the 
public,  if  not  to  him,  in  proving  his  power. 
My  books  got  talked  about  a  little.  The 
prices  of  modern  pictures,  generally,  rose, 
and  I  was  beginning  to  take  some  pleasure 
in  a  sense  of  gradual  victory,  when,  for- 
142 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  LIFE  AND  ITS  ARTS 

tunately  or  unfortunately,  an  opportunity 
of  perfect  trial  undeceived  me  at  once,  and 
forever.  The  Trustees  of  the  National 
Gallery  commissioned  me  to  arrange  the 
Turner  drawings  there,  and  permitted  me 
to  prepare  three  hundred  examples  of  his 
studies  from  nature,  for  exhibition  at  Ken- 
sington. At  Kensington  they  were,  and 
are,  placed  for  exhibition;  but  they  are  not 
exhibited,  for  the  room  in  which  they  hang 
is  always  empty. 

Well— this  showed  me  at  once  that 
those  ten  years  of  my  life  had  been,  in  their 
chief  purpose,  lost.  For  that,  I  did  not  so 
much  care;  I  had,  at  least,  learned  my  own 
business  thoroughly,  and  should  be  able,  as 
I  fondly  supposed,  after  such  a  lesson,  now 
to  use  my  knowledge  with  better  effect. 
But  what  I  did  care  for  was  the— to  me 
frightful— discovery,  that  the  most  splen- 
did genius  in  the  arts  might  be  permitted 
by  Providence  to  labor  and  perish  uselessly; 
that  in  the  very  fineness  of  it  there  might  be 
something  rendering  it  invisible  to  ordinary 
eyes;  but  that,  with  this  strange  excellence, 
faults  might  be  mingled  which  would  be  as 
deadly  as  its  virtues  were  vain ;  that  the  glory 
of  it  was  perishable,  as  well  as  invisible,  and 
the  gift  and  grace  of  it  might  be  to  us  as 
snow  in  summer  and  as  rain  in  harvest. 
143 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


That  was  the  first  mystery  of  life  to  me. 
But,  while  my  best  energy  was  given  to  the 
study  of  painting,  I  had  put  collateral  effort, 
more  prudent  if  less  enthusiastic,  into  that 
of  architecture;  and  in  this  I  could  not  com- 
plain of  meeting  with  no  sympathy.  Among 
several  personal  reasons  which  caused  me 
to  desire  that  I  might  give  this,  my  closing 
lecture  on  the  subject  of  art  here,  in  Ire- 
land, one  of  the  chief  was  that,  in  reading 
it,  I  should  stand  near  the  beautiful  build- 
ing—the engineers'  school  of  your  college 
—which  was  the  first  realization  I  had  the 
joy  to  see,  of  the  principles  I  had,  until 
then,  been  endeavoring  to  teach!  but  which, 
alas,  is  now,  to  me,  no  more  than  the  richly 
canopied  monument  of  one  of  the  most 
earnest  souls  that  ever  gave  itself  to  the 
arts,  and  one  of  my  truest  and  most  loving 
friends,  Benjamin  Woodward.  Nor  was  it 
here  in  Ireland  only  that  I  received  the  help 
of  Irish  sympathy  and  genius.  When  to 
another  friend,  Sir  Thomas  Deane,  with 
Mr.  Woodward,  was  intrusted  the  building 
of  the  museum  at  Oxford,  the  best  details 
of  the  work  were  executed  by  sculptors  who 
had  been  born  and  trained  here;  and  the 
first  window  of  the  facade  of  the  building, 
in  which  was  inaugurated  the  study  of  natu- 
ral science  in  England,  in  true  fellowship 
144 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  LIFE  AND  ITS  ARTS 

with  literature,  was  carved  from  my  design 
by  an  Irish  sculptor. 

You  may  perhaps  think  that  no  man 
ought  to  speak  of  disappointment,  to  whom, 
even  in  one  branch  of  labor,  so  much  suc- 
cess was  granted.  Had  Mr.  Woodward  now 
been  beside  me,  I  had  not  so  spoken;  but 
his  gentle  and  passionate  spirit  was  cut  off 
from  the  fulfilment  of  its  purposes,  and  the 
work  we  did  together  is  now  become  vain. 
It  may  not  be  so  in  future;  but  the  archi- 
tecture we  endeavored  to  introduce  is  in- 
consistent alike  with  the  reckless  luxury, 
the  deforming  mechanism,  and  the  squalid 
misery  of  modern  cities;  among  the  forma- 
tive fashions  of  the  day,  aided,  especially  in 
England,  by  ecclesiastical  sentiment,  it  in- 
deed obtained  notoriety;  and  sometimes  be- 
hind an  engine  furnace,  or  a  railroad  bank, 
you  may  detect  the  pathetic  discord  of  its 
momentary  grace,  and,  with  toil,  decipher  its 
floral  carvings  choked  with  soot.  I  felt  an- 
swerable to  the  schools  I  loved,  only  for  their 
injury.  I  perceived  that  this  new  portion 
of  my  strength  had  also  been  spent  in  vain; 
and  from  amidst  streets  of  iron,  and  palaces 
of  crystal,  shrank  back  at  last  to  the  carving 
of  the  mountain  and  color  of  the  flower. 

And  still  I  could  tell  of  failure,  and  fail- 
ure repeated,  as  years  went  on;  but  I  have 
10  145 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


trespassed  enough  on  your  patience  to  show 
you,  in  part,  the  causes  of  my  discourage- 
ment. Now  let  me  more  deliberately  tell 
you  its  results.  You  know  there  is  a  ten- 
dency in  the  minds  of  many  men,  when 
they  are  heavily  disappointed  in  the  main 
purposes  of  their  life,  to  feel,  and  perhaps 
in  warning,  perhaps  in  mockery,  to  declare, 
that  life  itself  is  a  vanity.  Because  it  has 
disappointed  them,  they  think  its  nature  is 
of  disappointment  always,  or  at  best,  of 
pleasure  that  can  be  grasped  by  imagina- 
tion only;  that  the  cloud  of  it  has  no 
strength  nor  fire  within;  but  is  a  painted 
cloud  only,  to  be  delighted  in,  yet  despised. 
You  know  how  beautifully  Pope  has  ex- 
pressed this  particular  phase  of  thought: 

Meanwhile  opinion  gilds,  with  varying  rays, 
These  painted  clouds  that  beautify  our  days ; 
Each  want  of  happiness  by  hope  supplied, 
And  each  vacuity  of  sense,  by  pride. 
Hope  builds  as  fast  as  Knowledge  can  destroy; 
In  Folly's  cup,  still  laughs  the  bubble  joy. 
One  pleasure  past,  another  still  we  gain, 
And  not  a  vanity  is  given  in  vain. 

But  the  effect  of  failure  upon  my  own 
mind  has  been  just  the  reverse  of  this. 
The  more  that  my  life  disappointed  me,  the 
more  solemn  and  wonderful  it  became  to 
me.  It  seemed,  contrarily  to  Pope's  say- 
146 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  LIFE  AND  ITS  ARTS 

ing,  that  the  vanity  of  it  was  indeed  given 
in  vain;  but  that  there  was  something  be- 
hind the  veil  of  it,  which  was  not  vanity. 
It  became  to  me  not  a  painted  cloud,  but  a 
terrible  and  impenetrable  one:  not  a  mirage, 
which  vanished  as  I  drew  near,  but  a  pillar 
of  darkness,  to  which  I  was  forbidden  to 
draw  near.  For  I  saw  that  both  my  own 
failure,  and  such  success  in  petty  things  as 
in  its  poor  triumph  seemed  to  me  worse 
than  failure,  came  from  the  want  of  suffi- 
ciently earnest  effort  to  understand  the 
whole  law  and  meaning  of  existence,  and  to 
bring  it  to  noble  and  due  end;  as,  on  the 
other  hand,  I  saw  more  and  more  clearly 
that  all  enduring  success  in  the  arts,  or  in 
any  other  occupation,  had  come  from  the 
ruling  of  lower  purposes,  not  by  a  convic- 
tion of  their  nothingness,  but  by  a  solemn 
faith  in  the  advancing  power  of  human 
nature,  or  in  the  promise,  however  dimly 
apprehended,  that  the  mortal  part  of  it 
would  one  day  be  swallowed  up  in  immor- 
tality; and  that,  indeed,  the  arts  themselves 
never  had  reached  any  vital  strength  or 
honor,  but  in  the  effort  to  proclaim  this 
immortality,  and  in  the  service  either  of 
great  and  just  religion,  or  of  some  unselfish 
patriotism,  and  law  of  such  national  life  as 
must  be  the  foundation  of  religion. 
147 


SESAME  AND  LILIES 


Nothing  that  I  have  ever  said  is  more 
true  or  necessary— nothing  has  been  more 
misunderstood  or  misapplied— than  my 
strong  assertion  that  the  arts  can  never  be 
right  themselves,  unless  their  motive  is 
right.  It  is  misunderstood  this  way:  weak 
painters,  who  have  never  learned  their  busi- 
ness, and  cannot  lay  a  true  line,  continually 
come  to  me,  crying  out— "Look  at  this  pic- 
ture of  mine;  it  must  be  good,  I  had  such  a 
lovely  motive.  I  have  put  my  whole  heart 
into  it,  and  taken  years  to  think  over  its 
treatment."  Well,  the  only  answer  for 
these  people  is— if  one  had  the  cruelty  to 
make  it— "Sir,  you  cannot  think  over 
am/thing  in  any  number  of  years,— you 
have  n't  the  head  to  do  it;  and  though  you 
had  fine  motives,  strong  enough  to  make 
you  burn  yourself  in  a  slow  fire,  if  only  first 
you  could  paint  a  picture,  you  can't  paint 
one,  nor  half  an  inch  of  one;  you  have  n't 
the  hand  to  do  it." 

But,  far  more  decisively  we  have  to  say  to 
the  men  who  do  know  their  business,  or 
may  know  it  if  they  choose—"  Sir,  you  have 
this  gift,  and  a  mighty  one;  see  that  you 
serve  your  nation  faithfully  with  it.  It  is 
a  greater  trust  than  ships  and  armies:  you 
might  cast  them  away,  if  you  were  their 
captain,  with  less  treason  to  your  people 
148 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  LIFE  AND  ITS  ARTS 

than  in  casting  your  own  glorious  power 
away,  and  serving  the  devil  with  it  instead 
of  men.  Ships  and  armies  you  may  replace 
if  they  are  lost,  but  a  great  intellect,  once 
abused,  is  a  curse  to  the  earth  forever." 

This,  then,  I  meant  by  saying  that  the 
arts  must  have  noble  motive.  This  also  I 
said  respecting  them,  that  they  never  had 
prospered,  nor  could  prosper,  but  when  they 
had  such  true  purpose,  and  were  devoted  to 
the  proclamation  of  divine  truth  or  law. 
And  yet  I  saw  also  that  they  had  always 
failed  in  this  proclamation— that  poetry, 
and  sculpture,  and  painting,  though  only 
great  when  they  strove  to  teach  us  some- 
thing about  the  gods,  never  had  taught  us 
anything  trustworthy  about  the  gods,  but 
had  always  betrayed  their  trust  in  the 
crisis  of  it,  and,  with  their  powers  at  the 
full  reach,  became  ministers  to  pride  and 
to  lust.  And  I  felt  also,  with  increasing 
amazement,  the  unconquerable  apathy  in 
ourselves  and  hearers,  no  less  than  in 
these  the  teachers;  and  that  while  the  wis- 
dom and  Tightness  of  every  act  and  art  of 
life  could  only  be  consistent  with  a  right 
understanding  of  the  ends  of  life,  we  were 
all  plunged  as  in  a  languid  dream— our 
hearts  fat,  and  our  eyes  heavy,  and  our 
ears  closed,  lest  the  inspiration  of  hand  or 
149 


SESAME  AND  LILIES 


voice  should  reach  us— lest  we  should  see 
with  our  eyes,  and  understand  with  our 
hearts,  and  be  healed. 

This  intense  apathy  in  all  of  us  is  the  first 
great  mystery  of  life;  it  stands  in  the  way 
of  every  perception,  every  virtue.  There  is 
no  making  ourselves  feel  enough  astonish- 
ment at  it.  That  the  occupations  or  pas- 
times of  life  should  have  no  motive,  is 
understandable;  but  that  life  itself  should 
have  no  motive— that  we  neither  care  to 
find  out  what  it  may  lead  to,  nor  to  guard 
against  its  being  forever  taken  away  from 
us— here  is  a  mystery  indeed.  For  just 
suppose  I  were  able  to  call  at  this  moment 
to  any  one  in  this  audience  by  name,  and  to 
tell  him  positively  that  I  knew  a  large 
estate  had  been  lately  left  to  him  on  some 
curious  conditions;  but  that  though  I  knew 
it  was  large,  I  did  not  know  how  large,  nor 
even  where  it  was— whether  in  the  East 
Indies  or  the  West,  or  in  England,  or  at  the 
Antipodes.  I  only  knew  it  was  a  vast  es- 
tate, and  that  there  was  a  chance  of  his 
losing  it  altogether  if  he  did  not  soon  find 
out  on  what  terms  it  had  been  left  to  him. 
Suppose  I  were  able  to  say  this  positively  to 
any  single  man  in  this  audience,  and  he 
knew  that  I  did  not  speak  without  warrant, 
do  you  think  that  he  would  rest  content 
160 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  LIFE  AND  ITS  ARTS 

with  that  vague  knowledge,  if  it  were  any- 
wise possible  to  obtain  more?  Would  he 
not  give  every  energy  to  find  some  trace  of 
the  facts,  and  never  rest  till  he  had  ascer- 
tained where  this  place  was,  and  what  it 
was  like?  And  suppose  he  were  a  young 
man,  and  all  he  could  discover  by  his  best 
endeavor  was  that  the  estate  was  never  to 
be  his  at  all,  unless  he  persevered,  during 
certain  years  of  probation,  in  an  orderly 
and  industrious  life;  but  that,  according  to 
the  Tightness  of  his  conduct,  the  portion  of 
the  estate  assigned  to  him  would  be  greater 
or  less,  so  that  it  literally  depended  on  his 
behavior  from  day  to  day  whether  he  got 
ten  thousand  a  year,  or  thirty  thousand  a 
year,  or  nothing  whatever— would  you  not 
think  it  strange  if  the  youth  never  troubled 
himself  to  satisfy  the  conditions  in  any 
way,  nor  even  to  know  what  was  required 
of  him,  but  lived  exactly  as  he  chose,  and 
never  inquired  whether  his  chances  of  the 
estate  were  increasing  or  passing  away? 
Well,  you  know  that  this  is  actually  and 
literally  so  with  the  greater  number  of  the 
educated  persons  now  living  in  Christian 
countries.  Nearly  every  man  and  woman, 
in  any  company  such  as  this,  outwardly 
professes  to  believe— and  a  large  number 
unquestionably  think  they  believe— much 
151 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


more  than  this;  not  only  that  a  quite  un- 
limited estate  is  in  prospect  for  them  if 
they  please  the  Holder  of  it,  but  that  the 
infinite  contrary  of  such  a  possession— an 
estate  of  perpetual  misery— is  in  store  for 
them  if  they  displease  this  great  Land- 
Holder,  this  great  Heaven-Holder.  And  yet 
there  is  not  one  in  a  thousand  of  these 
human  souls  that  cares  to  think,  for  ten 
minutes  of  the  day,  where  this  estate  is  or 
how  beautiful  it  is,  or  what  kind  of  life  they 
are  to  lead  in  it,  or  what  kind  of  life  they 
must  lead  to  obtain  it. 

You  fancy  that  you  care  to  know  this:  so 
little  do  you  care  that,  probably,  at  this 
moment  many  of  you  are  displeased  with 
me  for  talking  of  the  matter!  You  came  to 
hear  about  the  Art  of  this  world,  not  about 
the  Life  of  the  next,  and  you  are  provoked 
with  me  for  talking  of  what  you  can  hear 
any  Sunday  in  church.  But  do  not  be  afraid. 
I  will  tell  you  something  before  you  go 
about  pictures,  and  carvings,  and  pottery, 
and  what  else  you  would  like  better  to  hear 
of  than  the  other  world.  Nay,  perhaps  you 
say,  "  We  want  you  to  talk  of  pictures  and 
pottery,  because  we  are  sure  that  you  know 
something  of  them,  and  you  know  nothing 
of  the  other  world."  Well -I  don't.  That 
is  quite  true.  But  the  very  strangeness 
152 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  LIFE  AND  ITS  ARTS 

and  mystery  of  which  I  urge  you  to  take 
notice,  is  in  this— that  I  do  not;— nor  you 
either.  Can  you  answer  a  single  bold 
question  unflinchingly  about  that  other 
world?— Are  you  sure  there  is  a  heaven? 
Sure  there  is  a  hell?  Sure  that  men  are 
dropping  before  your  faces  through  the 
pavements  of  these  streets  into  eternal  fire, 
or  sure  that  they  are  not?  Sure  that  at 
your  own  death  you  are  going  to  be  de- 
livered from  all  sorrow,  to  be  endowed  with 
all  virtue,  to  be  gifted  with  all  felicity,  and 
raised  into  perpetual  companionship  with 
a  King,  compared  to  whom  the  kings  of  the 
earth  are  as  grasshoppers,  and  the  nations 
as  the  dust  of  His  feet?  Are  you  sure  of 
this?  or,  if  not  sure,  do  any  of  us  so  much 
as  care  to  make  it  sure?  and,  if  not,  how 
can  anything  that  we  do  be  right— how  can 
anything  we  think  be  wise?  what  honor  can 
there  be  in  the  arts  that  amuse  us,  or  what 
profit  in  the  possessions  that  please? 

Is  not  this  a  mystery  of  life? 

But  farther,  you  may,  perhaps,  think  it  a 
beneficent  ordinance  for  the  generality  of 
men  that  they  do  not,  with  earnestness  or 
anxiety,  dwell  on  such  questions  of  the  fu- 
ture because  the  business  of  the  day  could 
not  be  done  if  this  kind  of  thought  were 
taken  by  all  of  us  for  the  morrow.  Be  it  so: 
153 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


but  at  least  we  might  anticipate  that  the 
greatest  and  wisest  of  us,  who  were  evi- 
dently the  appointed  teachers  of  the  rest, 
would  set  themselves  apart  to  seek  out 
whatever  could  be  surely  known  of  the 
future  destinies  of  their  race;  and  to  teach 
this  in  no  rhetorical  or  ambiguous  manner, 
but  in  the  plainest  and  mose  severely  ear- 
nest words. 

Now,  the  highest  representatives  of  men 
who  have  thus  endeavored,  during  the 
Christian  era,  to  search  out  these  deep 
things,  and  relate  them,  are  Dante  and  Mil- 
ton. There  are  none  who  for  earnestness 
of  thought,  for  mastery  of  word,  can  be 
classed  with  these.  I  am  not  at  present, 
mind  you,  speaking  of  persons  set  apart  in 
any  priestly  or  pastoral  office,  to  deliver 
creeds  to  us,  or  doctrines;  but  of  men  who 
try  to  discover  and  set  forth,  as  far  as  by 
human  intellect  is  possible,  the  facts  of  the 
other  world.  Divines  may  perhaps  teach 
us  how  to  arrive  there,  but  only  these  two 
poets  have  in  any  powerful  manner  striven 
to  discover,  or  in  any  definite  words  pro- 
fessed to  tell,  what  we  shall  see  and  become 
there;  or  how  those  upper  and  nether 
worlds  are,  and  have  been,  inhabited. 

And  what  have  they  told  us?  Milton's 
account  of  the  most  important  event  in  his 
154 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  LIFE  AND  ITS  ARTS 

whole  system  of  the  universe,  the  fall  of 
the  angels,  is  evidently  unbelievable  to 
himself;  and  the  more  so,  that  it  is  wholly 
founded  on,  and  in  a  great  part  spoiled  and 
degraded  from,  Hesiod's  account  of  the  de- 
cisive war  of  the  younger  gods  with  the 
Titans.  The  rest  of  his  poem  is  a  pictur- 
esque drama,  in  which  every  artifice  of  in- 
vention is  visibly  and  consciously  employed; 
not  a  single  fact  being,  for  an  instant, 
conceived  as  tenable  by  any  living  faith. 
Dante's  conception  is  far  more  intense,  and, 
by  himself,  for  the  time,  not  to  be  escaped 
from;  it  is  indeed  a  vision,  but  a  vision  only, 
and  that  one  of  the  wildest  that  ever  en- 
tranced a  soul— a  dream  in  which  every 
grotesque  type  or  fantasy  of  heathen  tra- 
dition is  renewed,  and  adorned;  and  the  des- 
tinies of  the  Christian  Church,  under  their 
most  sacred  symbols,  become  literally  sub- 
ordinate to  the  praise,  and  are  only  to  be 
understood  by  the  aid,  of  one  dear  Floren- 
tine maiden. 

I  tell  you  truly  that,  as  I  strive  more  with 
this  strange  lethargy  and  trance  in  myself, 
and  awake  to  the  meaning  and  power  of  life, 
it  seems  daily  more  amazing  to  me  that 
men  such  as  these  should  dare  to  play  with 
the  most  precious  truths  (or  the  most 
deadly  untruths),  by  which  the  whole  human 
155 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 


race  listening  to  them  could  be  informed, 
or  deceived;— all  the  world  their  audiences 
forever,  with  pleased  ear,  and  passionate 
heart;— and  yet,  to  this  submissive  infini- 
tude of  souls,  and  evermore  succeeding  and 
succeeding  multitude,  hungry  for  bread  of 
life,  they  do  but  play  upon  sweetly  modu- 
lated pipes;  with  pompous  nomenclature 
adorn  the  councils  of  hell;  touch  a  trouba- 
dour's guitar  to  the  courses  of  the  suns;  and 
fill  the  openings  of  eternity,  before  which 
prophets  have  veiled  their  faces,  and  which 
angels  desire  to  look  into,  with  idle  puppets 
of  their  scholastic  imagination,  and  melan- 
choly lights  of  frantic  faith  in  their  lost 
mortal  love. 

Is  not  this  a  mystery  of  life? 

But  more.  We  have  to  remember  that 
these  two  great  teachers  were  both  of  them 
warped  in  their  temper,  and  thwarted  in 
their  search  for  truth.  They  were  men  of 
intellectual  war,  unable,  through  darkness 
of  controversy,  or  stress  of  personal  grief, 
to  discern  where  their  own  ambition  modi- 
fied their  utterances  of  the  moral  law;  or 
their  own  agony  mingled  with  their  anger 
at  its  violation.  But  greater  men  than  these 
have  been— innocent-hearted— too  great 
for  contest.  Men,  like  Homer  and  Shak- 
spere,  of  so  unrecognized  personality  that  it 
156 


THE  MYSTERY  OP  LIFE  AND  ITS  ARTS 

disappears  in  future  ages,  and  becomes 
ghostly,  like  the  tradition  of  a  lost  heathen 
god.  Men,  therefore,  to  whose  unoffended, 
uncondemning  sight,  the  whole  of  human 
nature  reveals  itself  in  a  pathetic  weakness, 
with  which  they  will  not  strive;  or  in 
mournful  and  transitory  strength,  which 
they  dare  not  praise.  And  all  Pagan  and 
Christian  Civilization  thus  becomes  subject 
to  them.  It  does  not  matter  how  little,  or 
how  much,  any  of  us  have  read,  either  of 
Homer  or  Shakspere;  everything  round 
us,  in  substance,  or  in  thought,  has  been 
molded  by  them.  All  Greek  gentlemen  were 
educated  under  Homer.  All  Roman  gentle- 
men, by  Greek  literature.  All  Italian,  and 
French,  and  English  gentlemen,  by  Roman 
literature,  and  by  its  principles.  Of  the 
scope  of  Shakspere,  I  will  say  only  that  the 
intellectual  measure  of  every  man  since 
born,  in  the  domains  of  creative  thought, 
may  be  assigned  to  him,  according  to  the 
degree  in  which  he  has  been  taught  by 
Shakspere.  Well,  what  do  these  two  men, 
centers  of  mortal  intelligence,  deliver  to  us 
of  conviction  respecting  what  it  most  be- 
hooves that  intelligence  to  grasp?  What  is 
their  hope— their  crown  of  rejoicing?  what 
manner  of  exhortation  have  they  for  us,  or 
of  rebuke?  what  lies  next  their  own  hearts, 
157 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


and  dictates  their  undying  words?  Have 
they  any  peace  to  promise  to  our  unrest— 
any  redemption  to  our  misery? 

Take  Homer  first,  and  think  if  there  is 
any  sadder  image  of  human  fate  than  the 
great  Homeric  story.  The  main  features 
in  the  character  of  Achilles  are  its  intense 
desire  of  justice,  and  its  tenderness  of 
affection.  And  in  that  bitter  song  of  the 
Iliad,  this  man,  though  aided  continually  by 
the  wisest  of  the  gods,  and  burning  with 
the  desire  of  justice  in  his  heart,  becomes 
yet,  through  ill-governed  passion,  the  most 
unjust  of  men:  and,  full  of  the  deepest 
tenderness  in  his  heart,  becomes  yet, 
through  ill-governed  passion,  the  most  cruel 
of  men.  Intense  alike  in  love  and  in  friend- 
ship, he  loses,  first  his  mistress,  and  then 
his  friend;  for  the  sake  of  the  one,  he  sur- 
renders to  death  the  armies  of  his  own  land; 
for  the  sake  of  the  other,  he  surrenders  all. 
Will  a  man  lay  down  his  life  for  his  friend? 
Yea— even  for  his  dead  friend,  this  Achilles, 
though  goddess-born,  and  goddess-taught, 
gives  up  his  kingdom,  his  country,  and  his 
life— casts  alike  the  innocent  and  guilty, 
with  himself,  into  one  gulf  of  slaughter, 
and  dies  at  last  by  the  hand  of  the  basest 
of  his  adversaries. 

Is  not  this  a  mystery  of  life? 
158 


THE  MYSTERY  OP  LIFE  AND  ITS  ARTS 

But  what,  then,  is  the  message  to  us  of 
our  own  poet,  and  searcher  of  hearts,  after 
fifteen  hundred  years  of  Christian  faith  have 
been  numbered  over  the  graves  of  men? 
Are  his  words  more  cheerful  than  the 
Heathen's— is  his  hope  more  near— his 
trust  more  sure— his  reading  of  fate  more 
happy?  Ah,  no!  He  differs  from  the 
Heathen  poet  chiefly  in  this— that  he  recog- 
nizes, for  deliverance,  no  gods  nigh  at  hand; 
and  that,  by  petty  chance— by  momentary 
folly— by  broken  message— by  fooPs  tyr- 
anny—or traitor's  snare,  the  strongest  and 
most  righteous  are  brought  to  their  ruin, 
and  perish  without  word  of  hope.  He  in- 
deed, as  part  of  his  rendering  of  character, 
ascribes  the  power  and  modesty  of  habitual 
devotion  to  the  gentle  and  the  just.  The 
death-bed  of  Katharine  is  bright  with  vi- 
sions of  angels;  and  the  great  soldier-king, 
standing  by  his  few  dead,  acknowledges  the 
presence  of  the  Hand  that  can  save  alike 
by  many  or  by  few.  But  observe  that  from 
those  who  with  deepest  spirit,  meditate,  and 
with  deepest  passion,  mourn,  there  are  no 
such  words  as  these;  nor  in  their  hearts  are 
any  such  consolations.  Instead  of  the  per- 
petual sense  of  the  helpful  presence  of  the 
Deity,  which,  through  all  heathen  tradition, 
is  the  source  of  heroic  strength,  in  battle, 
159 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


in  exile,  and  in  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of 
death,  we  find  only  in  the  great  Christian 
poet,  the  consciousness  of  a  moral  law, 
through  which  "the  gods  are  just,  and  of 
our  pleasant  vices  make  instruments  to 
scourge  us  ";  and  of  the  resolved  arbitration 
of  the  destinies,  that  conclude  into  precision 
of  doom  what  we  feebly  and  blindly  began; 
and  force  us,  when  our  indiscretion  serves 
us,  and  our  deepest  plots  do  pall,  to  the  con- 
fession that "  there 's  a  divinity  that  shapes 
our  ends,  rough  hew  them  how  we  will." 

Is  not  this  a  mystery  of  life? 

Be  it  so,  then.  About  this  human  life 
that  is  to  be,  or  that  is,  the  wise  religious 
men  tell  us  nothing  that  we  can  trust;  and 
the  wise  contemplative  men,  nothing  that 
can  give  us  peace.  But  there  is  yet  a  third 
class,  to  whom  we  may  turn— the  wise 
practical  men.  We  have  sat  at  the  feet  of 
the  poets  who  sang  of  heaven,  and  they 
have  told  us  their  dreams.  We  have  lis- 
tened to  the  poets  who  sang  of  earth,  and 
they  have  chanted  to  us  dirges  and  words 
of  despair.  But  there  is  one  class  of  men 
more:— men,  not  capable  of  vision,  nor 
sensitive  to  sorrow,  but  firm  of  purpose— 
practised  in  business;  learned  in  all  that 
can  be  (by  handling)  known.  Men  whose 
hearts  and  hopes  are  wholly  in  this  present 
160 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  LIFE  AND  ITS  ARTS 

world,  from  whom,  therefore,  we  may  surely 
learn,  at  least,  how,  at  present,  conveniently 
to  live  in  it.  What  will  they  say  to  us,  or 
show  us  by  example?  These  kings— these 
councilors— these  statesmen  and  builders 
of  kingdoms— these  capitalists  and  men  of 
business,  who  weigh  the  earth,  and  the 
dust  of  it,  in  a  balance.  They  know  the 
world,  surely;  and  what  is  the  mystery  of 
life  to  us,  is  none  to  them.  They  can  surely 
show  us  how  to  live,  while  we  live,  and  to 
gather  out  of  the  present  world  what  is 
best. 

I  think  I  can  best  tell  you  their  answer, 
by  telling  you  a  dream  I  had  once.  For 
though  I  am  no  poet,  I  have  dreams  some- 
times:—I  dreamed  I  was  at  a  child's  May- 
day party,  in  which  every  means  of  enter- 
tainment had  been  provided  for  them,  by 
a  wise  and  kind  host.  It  was  in  a  stately 
house,  wi^h  beautiful  gardens  attached  to 
it;  and  the  children  had  been  set  free  in  the 
rooms  and  gardens,  with  no  care  whatever 
but  how  to  pass  their  afternoon  rejoicingly. 
They  did  not,  indeed,  know  much  about 
what  was  to  happen  next  day;  and  some  of 
them,  I  thought,  were  a  little  frightened, 
because  there  was  a  chance  of  their  being 
sent  to  a  new  school  where  there  were  ex- 
aminations; but  they  kept  the  thoughts  of 
11  161 


SESAME  AND  LILIES 


that  out  of  their  heads  as  well  as  they  could, 
and  resolved  to  enjoy  themselves.  The 
house,  I  said,  was  in  a  beautiful  garden,  and 
in  the  garden  were  all  kinds  of  flowers; 
sweet,  grassy  banks  for  rest;  and  smooth 
lawns  for  play;  and  pleasant  streams  and 
woods;  and  rocky  places  for  climbing.  And 
the  children  were  happy  for  a  little  while, 
but  presently  they  separated  themselves 
into  parties;  and  then  each  party  declared 
it  would  have  a  piece  of  the  garden  for  its 
own,  and  that  none  of  the  others  should 
have  anything  to  do  with  that  piece.  Next, 
they  quarreled  violently  which  pieces  they 
would  have;  and  at  last  the  boys  took  up 
the  thing,  as  boys  should  do,  "practically," 
and  fought  in  the  flower-beds  till  there  was 
hardly  a  flower  left  standing;  then  they 
trampled  down  each  other's  bits  of  the  gar- 
den out  of  spite;  and  the  girls  cried  till  they 
could  cry  no  more;  and  so  they  all  lay  down 
at  last  breathless  in  the  ruin,  and  waited 
for  the  time  when  they  were  to  be  taken 
home  in  the  evening.1 

Meanwhile,  the  children  in  the  house  had 
been  making  themselves  happy  also  in  their 
manner.  For  them,  there  had  been  pro- 

1  I  have  sometimes  been  asked  what  this  means.  I  in- 
tended it  to  set  forth  the  wisdom  of  men  in  war  contending 
for  kingdoms,  and  what  follows  to  set  forth  their  wisdom  in 
peace,  contending  for  wealth. 

162 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  LIFE  AND  ITS  ARTS 

vided  every  kind  of  indoor  pleasure:  there 
was  music  for  them  to  dance  to;  and  the 
library  was  open,  with  all  manner  of  amus- 
ing books;  and  there  was  a  museum  full  of 
the  most  curious  shells,  and  animals,  and 
birds;  and  there  was  a  workshop,  with  lathes 
and  carpenters'  tools,  for  the  ingenious 
boys;  and  there  were  pretty  fantastic 
dresses,  for  the  girls  to  dress  in;  and  there 
were  microscopes,  and  kaleidoscopes;  and 
whatever  toys  a  child  could  fancy;  and  a 
table,  in  the  dining-room,  loaded  with  every- 
thing nice  to  eat. 

But,  in  the  midst  of  all  this,  it  struck 
two  or  three  of  the  more  "practical"  chil- 
dren that  they  would  like  some  of  the 
brass-headed  nails  that  studded  the  chairs; 
and  so  they  set  to  work  to  pull  them  out. 
Presently,  the  others,  who  were  reading,  or 
looking  at  shells,  took  a  fancy  to  do  the 
like;  and,  in  a  little  while,  all  the  children, 
nearly,  were  spraining  their  fingers,  in  pull- 
ing out  brass-headed  nails.  With  all  that 
they  could  pull  out,  they  were  not  satisfied; 
and  then,  everybody  wanted  some  of  some- 
body else's.  And  at  last,  the  really  practi- 
cal and  sensible  ones  declared  that  nothing 
was  of  any  real  consequence,  that  afternoon, 
except  to  get  plenty  of  brass-headed  nails; 
and  that  the  books,  and  the  cakes,  and  the 
163 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 


microscopes  were  of  no  use  at  all  in  them- 
selves, but  only  if  they  could  be  exchanged 
for  nail-heads.  And  at  last  they  began  to 
fight  for  nail-heads,  as  the  others  fought 
for  the  bits  of  garden.  Only  here  and  there, 
a  despised  one  shrank  away  into  a  corner, 
and  tried  to  get  a  little  quiet  with  a  book, 
in  the  midst  of  the  noise;  but  all  the 
practical  ones  thought  of  nothing  else  but 
counting  nail-heads  all  the  afternoon— even 
though  they  knew  they  would  not  be  al- 
lowed to  carry  so  much  as  one  brass  knob 
away  with  them.  But  no— it  was— "Who 
has  most  nails?  I  have  a  hundred,  and  you 
have  fifty;  or,  I  have  a  thousand,  and  you 
have  two.  I  must  have  as  many  as  you  be- 
fore I  leave  the  house,  or  I  cannot  possibly 
go  home  in  peace."  At  last  they  made  so 
much  noise  that  I  awoke,  and  thought  to 
myself,  "What  a  false  dream  that  is,  of 
children ! "  The  child  is  the  father  of  the 
man,  and  wiser.  Children  never  do  such 
foolish  things.  Only  men  do. 

But  there  is  yet  one  last  class  of  persons 
to  be  interrogated.  The  wise  religious  men 
we  have  asked  in  vain;  the  wise  contem- 
plative men,  in  vain;  the  wise  worldly  men, 
in  vain.  But  there  is  another  group  yet. 
In  the  midst  of  this  vanity  of  empty  religion 
—of  tragic  contemplation— of  wrathful  and 
164 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  LIFE  AND  ITS  ARTS 

wretched  ambition,  and  dispute  for  dust, 
there  is  yet  one  great  group  of  persons,  by 
whom  all  these  disputers  live— the  persons 
who  have  determined,  or  have  had  it  by  a 
beneficent  Providence  determined  for  them, 
that  they  will  do  something  useful;  that 
whatever  may  be  prepared  for  them  here- 
after, or  happen  to  them  here,  they  will,  at 
least,  deserve  the  food  that  God  gives  them 
by  winning  it  honorably:  and  that,  however 
fallen  from  the  purity,  or  far  from  the 
peace,  of  Eden,  they  will  carry  out  the  duty 
of  human  dominion,  though  they  have  lost 
its  felicity;  and  dress  and  keep  the  wilder- 
ness, though  they  no  more  can  dress  or 
keep  the  garden. 

These,— hewers  of  wood,  and  drawers  of 
water,— these,  bent  under  burdens,  or  torn 
of  scourges— these,  that  dig  and  weave- 
that  plant  and  build;  workers  in  wood,  and 
in  marble,  and  in  iron— by  whom  all  food, 
clothing,  habitation,  furniture,  and  means 
of  delight  are  produced,  for  themselves,  and 
for  all  men  beside;  men,  whose  deeds  are 
good,  though  their  words  may  be  few;  men, 
whose  lives  are  serviceable,  be  they  never 
so  short,  and  worthy  of  honor,  be  they 
never  so  humble;— from  these,  surely,  at 
least,  we  may  receive  some  clear  mes- 
sage of  teaching;  and  pierce,  for  an  in- 
165 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


stant,  into  the  mystery  of  life,  and  of  its 
arts. 

Yes;  from  these,  at  last,  we  do  receive  a 
lesson.  But  I  grieve  to  say,  or  rather— for 
that  is  the  deeper  truth  of  the  matter— I 
rejoice  to  say— this  message  of  theirs  can 
only  be  received  by  joining  them— not  by 
thinking  about  them. 

You  sent  for  me  to  talk  to  you  of  art;  and 
I  have  obeyed  you  in  coming.  But  the  main 
thing  I  have  to  tell  you  is,— that  art  must 
not  be  talked  about.  The  fact  that  there 
is  talk  about  it  at  all,  signifies  that  it  is  ill 
done,  or  cannot  be  done.  No  true  painter 
ever  speaks,  or  ever  has  spoken,  much  of 
his  art.  The  greatest  speak  nothing.  Even 
Reynolds  is  no  exception,  for  he  wrote  of 
all  that  he  could  not  himself  do,  and  was 
utterly  silent  respecting  all  that  he  himself 
did. 

The  moment  a  man  can  really  do  his  work 
he  becomes  speechless  about  it.  All  words 
become  idle  to  him— all  theories. 

Does  a  bird  need  to  theorize  about  build- 
ing its  nest,  or  boast  of  it  when  built?  All 
good  work  is  essentially  done  that  way— 
without  hesitation,  without  difficulty,  with- 
out boasting;  and  in  the  doers  of  the  best, 
there  is  an  inner  and  involuntary  power 
which  approximates  literally  to  the  instinct 
166 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  LIFE  AND  ITS  ARTS 

of  an  animal— nay,  I  am  certain  that  in  the 
most  perfect  human  artists,  reason  does 
not  supersede  instinct,  but  is  added  to  an 
instinct  as  much  more  divine  than  that  of 
the  lower  animals  as  the  human  body  is 
more  beautiful  than  theirs;  that  a  great 
singer  sings  not  with  less  instinct  than  the 
nightingale,  but  with  more— only  more  va- 
rious, applicable,  and  governable;  that  a 
great  architect  does  not  build  with  less  in- 
stinct than  the  beaver  or  the  bee,  but  with 
more — with  an  innate  cunning  of  propor- 
tion that  embraces  all  beauty,  and  a  divine 
ingenuity  o'f  skill  that  improvises  all  con- 
struction. But  be  that  as  it  may— be  the 
instinct  less  or  more  than  that  of  inferior 
animals— like  or  unlike  theirs,  still  the  hu- 
man art  is  dependent  on  that  first,  and 
then  upon  an  amount  of  practice,  of  science, 
—and  of  imagination  disciplined  by  thought, 
which  the  true  possessor  of  it  knows  to  be 
incommunicable,  and  the  true  critic  of  it, 
inexplicable,  except  through  long  process 
of  laborious  years.  That  journey  of  life's 
conquest,  in  which  hills  over  hills,  and  Alps 
on  Alps  arose,  and  sank,— do  you  think  you 
can  make  another  trace  it  painlessly,  by 
talking?  Why,  you  cannot  even  carry  us 
up  an  Alp,  by  talking.  You  can  guide  us 
up  it,  step  by  step,  no  otherwise— even  so, 
167 


SESAME  AND  LILIES 


best  silently.  You  girls,  who  have  been 
among  the  hills,  know  how  the  bad  guide 
chatters  and  gesticulates,  and  it  is  "Put 
your  foot  here";  and  "Mind  how  you  bal- 
ance yourself  there ";  but  the  good  guide 
walks  on  quietly,  without  a  word,  only  with 
his  eyes  on  you  when  need  is,  and  his  arm 
like  an  iron  bar,  if  need  be. 

In  that  slow  way,  also,  art  can  be  taught 
—if  you  have  faith  in  your  guide,  and  will 
let  his  arm  be  to  you  as  an  iron  bar  when 
need  is.  But  in  what  teacher  of  art  have 
you  such  faith?  Certainly  not  in  me;  for, 
as  I  told  you  at  first,  I  know  well  enough  it 
is  only  because  you  think  I  can  talk,  not 
because  you  think  I  know  my  business,  that 
you  let  me  speak  to  you  at  all.  If  I  were 
to  tell  you  anything  that  seemed  to  you 
strange  you  would  not  believe  it,  and  yet  it 
would  only  be  in  telling  you  strange  things 
that  I  could  be  of  use  to  you.  I  could  be  of 
great  use  to  you— infinite  use— with  brief 
saying,  if  you  would  believe  it;  but  you 
would  not,  just  because  the  thing  that 
would  be  of  real  use  would  displease  you. 
You  are  all  wild,  for  instance,  with  admira- 
tion of  Gustave  Dore*.  Well,  suppose  I  were 
to  tell  you,  in  the  strongest  terms  I  could 
use,  that  Gustave  Dore"'s  art  was  bad— bad, 
not  in  weakness,— not  in  failure,— but  bad 
168 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  LIFE  AND  ITS  ARTS 

with  dreadful  power— the  power  of  the 
Furies  and  the  Harpies  mingled,  enraging, 
and  polluting;  that  so  long  as  you  looked  at 
it,  no  perception  of  pure  or  beautiful  art 
was  possible  for  you.  Suppose  I  were  to 
tell  you  that!  What  would  be  the  use? 
Would  you  look  at  Gustave  Dore  less? 
Rather,  more,  I  fancy.  On  the  other  hand, 
I  could  soon  put  you  into  good  humor  with 
me,  if  I  chose.  I  know  well  enough  what 
you  like,  and  how  to  praise  it  to  your  bet- 
ter liking.  I  could  talk  to  you  about  moon- 
light, and  twilight,  and  spring  flowers,  and 
autumn  leaves,  and  the  Madonnas  of  Ra- 
phael—how motherly!  and  the  Sibyls  of 
Michelangelo— how  majestic!  and  the 
Saints  of  Angelico— how  pious!  and  the 
Cherubs  of  Correggio— how  delicious!  Old 
as  I  am,  I  could  play  you  a  tune  on  the 
harp  yet,  that  you  would  dance  to.  But 
neither  you  nor  I  should  be  a  bit  the  better 
or  wiser;  or,  if  we  were,  our  increased  wis- 
dom could  be  of  no  practical  effect.  For, 
indeed,  the  arts,  as  regards  teachableness, 
differ  from  the  sciences  also  in  this,  that 
their  power  is  founded  not  merely  on  facts 
which  can  be  communicated,  but  on  dis- 
positions which  require  to  be  created.  Art 
is  neither  to  be  achieved  by  effort  of  think- 
ing, nor  explained  by  accuracy  of  speaking. 
169 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


It  is  the  instinctive  and  necessary  result  of 
power,  which  can  only  be  developed  through 
the  mind  of  successive  generations,  and 
which  finally  bursts  into  life  under  social 
conditions  as  slow  of  growth  as  the  facul- 
ties they  regulate.  Whole  eras  of  mighty 
history  are  summed,  and  the  passions  of 
dead  myraids  are  concentrated,  in  the  ex- 
istence of  a  noble  art;  and  if  that  noble  art 
were  among  us,  we  should  feel  it  and  re- 
joice; not  caring  in  the  least  to  hear  lec- 
tures on  it;  and  since  it  is  not  among  us,  be 
assured  we  have  to  go  back  to  the  root  of 
it,  or,  at  least,  to  the  place  where  the  stock 
of  it  is  yet  alive,  and  the  branches  began  to 
die. 

And  now,  may  I  have  your  pardon  for 
pointing  out,  partly  with  reference  to  mat- 
ters which  are  at  this  time  of  greater  mo- 
ment than  the  arts— that  if  we  undertook 
such  recession  to  the  vital  germ  of  national 
arts  that  have  decayed,  we  should  find  a 
more  singular  arrest  of  their  power  in  Ire- 
land than  in  any  other  European  country? 
For  in  the  eighth  century  Ireland  possessed 
a  school  of  art  in  her  manuscripts  and 
sculpture,  which,  in  many  of  its  qualities— 
apparently  in  all  essential  qualities  of  deco- 
rative invention— was  quite  without  rival; 
seeming  as  if  it  might  have  advanced  to  the 
170 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  LIFE  AND  ITS  ARTS 

highest  triumphs  in  architecture  and  in 
painting.  But  there  was  one  fatal  flaw  in 
its  nature,  hy  which  it  was  stayed,  and 
stayed  with  a  conspicuousness  of  pause  to 
which  there  is  no  parallel:  so  that,  long  ago, 
in  tracing  the  progress  of  European  schools 
from  infancy  to  strength,  I  chose  for  the 
students  of  Kensington,  in  a  lecture  since 
published,  two  characteristic  examples  of 
early  art,  of  equal  skill;  hut  in  the  one  case, 
skill  which  was  progressive— in  the  other, 
skill  which  was  at  pause.  In  the  one  case, 
it  was  work  receptive  of  correction— hun- 
gry for  correction;  and  in  the  other,  work 
which  inherently  rejected  correction.  I 
chose  for  them  a  corrigible  Eve,  and  an 
incorrigible  Angel,  and  I  grieve  to  say  that 
the  incorrigible  Angel  was  also  an  Irish 
Angel!1 

And  the  fatal  difference  lay  wholly  in  this. 
In  both  pieces  of  art  there  was  an  equal 
falling  short  of  the  needs  of  fact;  but  the 
Lombardic  Eve  knew  she  was  in  the  wrong, 
and  the  Irish  Angel  thought  himself  all 
right.  The  eager  Lombardic  sculptor, 
though  firmly  insisting  on  his  childish  idea, 
yet  showed  in  the  irregular  broken  touches 
of  the  features,  and  the  imperfect  struggle 
for  softer  lines  in  the  form,  a  perception  of 

i  See  "  The  Two  Paths,"  g§  28  et  seq. 
171 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


beauty  and  law  that  he  could  not  render; 
there  was  the  strain  of  effort,  under  con- 
scious imperfection,  in  every  line.  But  the 
Irish  missal-painter  had  drawn  his  angel 
with  no  sense  of  failure,  in  happy  compla- 
cency, and  put  red  dots  into  the  palm  of 
each  hand,  and  rounded  the  eyes  into  per- 
fect circles,  and,  I  regret  to  say,  left  the 
mouth  out  altogether,  with  perfect  satis- 
faction to  himself. 

May  I  without  offense  ask  you  to  con- 
sider whether  this  mode  of  arrest  in  ancient 
Irish  art  may  not  be  indicative  of  points  of 
character  which  even  yet,  in  some  measure, 
arrest  your  national  power?  I  have  seen 
much  of  Irish  character,  and  have  watched 
it  closely,  for  I  have  also  much  loved  it. 
And  I  think  the  form  of  failure  to  which  it  is 
most  liable  is  this,— that  being  generous- 
hearted,  and  wholly  intending  always  to  do 
right,  it  does  not  attend  to  the  external 
laws  of  right,  but  thinks  it  must  necessarily 
do  right  because  it  means  to  do  so,  and 
therefore  does  wrong  without  finding  it 
out;  and  then,  when  the  consequences  of  its 
wrong  come  upon  it,  or  upon  others  con- 
nected with  it,  it  cannot  conceive  that  the 
wrong  is  in  any  wise  of  its  causing  or  of  its 
doing,  but  flies  into  wrath,  and  a  strange 
agony  of  desire  for  justice,  as  feeling  itself 
172 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  LIFE  AND  ITS  ARTS 

wholly  innocent,  which  leads  it  farther 
astray,  until  there  is  nothing  that  it  is  not 
capable  of  doing  with  a  good  conscience. 

But  mind,  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that,  in 
past  or  present  relations  between  Ireland 
and  England,  you  have  been  wrong,  and  we 
right.  Far  from  that,  I  believe  that  in  all 
great  questions  of  principle,  and  in  all  de- 
tails of  administration  of  law,  you  have  been 
usually  right,  and  we  wrong;  sometimes  in 
misunderstanding  you,  sometimes  in  reso- 
lute iniquity  to  you.  Nevertheless,  in  all 
disputes  between  states,  though  the 
stronger  is  nearly  always  mainly  in  the 
wrong,  the  weaker  is  often  so  in  a  minor 
degree;  and  I  think  we  sometimes  admit 
the  possibility  of  our  being  in  error,  and 
you  never  do. 

And  now,  returning  to  the  broader  ques- 
tion, what  these  arts  and  labors  of  life  have 
to  teach  us  of  its  mystery,  this  is  the  first 
of  their  lessons— that  the  more  beautiful 
the  art,  the  more  it  is  essentially  the  work 
of  people  who  feel  themselves  wrong;— who 
are  striving  for  the  fulfilment  of  a  law,  and 
the  grasp  of  a  loveliness,  which  they  have 
not  yet  attained,  which  they  feel  even  far- 
ther and  farther  from  attaining  the  more 
they  strive  for  it.  And  yet,  in  still  deeper 
sense,  it  is  the  work  of  people  who  know 
173 


SESAME  AND  LILIES 


also  that  they  are  right.  The  very  sense  of 
inevitable  error  from  their  purpose  marks 
the  perfectness  of  that  purpose,  and  the 
continued  sense  of  failure  arises  from  the 
continued  opening  of  the  eyes  more  clearly 
to  all  the  sacredest  laws  of  truth. 

This  is  one  lesson.  The  second  is  a  very 
plain,  and  greatly  precious  one:  namely— 
that  whenever  the  arts  and  labors  of  life 
are  fulfilled  in  this  spirit  of  striving  against 
misrule,  and  doing  whatever  we  have  to  do, 
honorably  and  perfectly,  they  invariably 
bring  happiness,  as  much  as  seems  possible 
to  the  nature  of  man.  In  all  other  paths  by 
which  that  happiness  is  pursued  there  is 
disappointment,  or  destruction:  for  ambi- 
tion and  for  passion  there  is  no  rest— no 
fruition;  the  fairest  pleasures  of  youth  per- 
ish in  a  darkness  greater  than  their  past 
light:  and  the  loftiest  and  purest  love  too 
often  does  but  inflame  the  cloud  of  life  with 
endless  fire  of  pain.  But,  ascending  from 
lowest  to  highest,  through  every  scale  of 
human  industry,  that  industry,  worthily  fol- 
lowed, gives  peace.  Ask  the  laborer  in  the 
field,  at  the  forge,  or  in  the  mine;  ask 
the  patient,  delicate-fingered  artizan,  or 
the  strong-armed,  fiery-hearted  worker  in 
bronze,  and  in  marble,  and  with  the  colors 
of  light;  and  none  of  these,  who  are  true 
174 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  LIFE  AND  ITS  ARTS 

\ 

workmen,  will  ever  tell  you  that  they  have 
found  the  law  of  heaven  an  unkind  one— 
that  in  the  sweat  of  their  face  they  should 
eat  bread,  till  they  return  to  the  ground; 
nor  that  they  ever  found  it  an  unrewarded 
obedience,  if,  indeed,  it  was  rendered  faith- 
fully to  the  command— "Whatsoever  thy 
hand  findeth  to  do,  do  it  with  thy  might." 

These  are  the  two  great  and  constant 
lessons  which  our  laborers  teach  us  of  the 
mystery  of  life.  But  there  is  another,  and 
a  sadder  one,  which  they  cannot  teach  us, 
which  we  must  read  on  their  tombstones. 

"Do  it  with  thy  might."  There  have 
been  myriads  upon  myriads  of  human  crea- 
tures who  have  obeyed  this  law — who  have 
put  every  breath  and  nerve  of  their  being 
into  its  toil— who  have  devoted  every  hour, 
and  exhausted  every  faculty— who  have  be- 
queathed their  unaccomplished  thoughts  at 
death— who,  being  dead,  have  yet  spoken, 
by  majesty  of  memory,  and  strength  of  ex- 
ample. And,  at  last,  what  has  all  this 
"  Might "  of  humanity  accomplished,  in  six 
thousand  years  of  labor  and  sorrow?  What 
has  it  done  ?  Take  the  three  chief  occupa- 
tions and  arts  of  men,  one  by  one,  and  count 
their  achievements.  Begin  with  the  first— 
the  lord  of  them  all— Agriculture.  Six 
thousand  years  have  passed  since  we  were 
175 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 


set  to  till  the  ground,  from  which  we  were 
taken.  How  much  of  it  is  tilled?  How 
much  of  that  which  is,  wisely  or  well?  In 
the  very  center  and  chief  garden  of  Europe 
—where  the  two  forms  of  parent  Christi- 
anity have  had  their  fortresses— where  the 
noble  Catholics  of  the  Forest  Cantons,  and 
the  noble  Protestants  of  the  Vaudois  val- 
leys, have  maintained,  for  dateless  ages, 
their  faiths  and  liberties— there  the  un- 
checked Alpine  rivers  yet  run  wild  in  dev- 
astation; and  the  marshes,  which  a  few 
hundred  men  could  redeem  with  a  year's 
labor,  still  blast  their  helpless  inhabitants 
into  fevered  idiotism.  That  is  so,  in  the 
center  of  Europe!  While,  on  the  near  coast 
of  Africa,  once  the  Garden  of  the  Hesperi- 
des,  an  Arab  woman,  but  a  few  sunsets 
since,  ate  her  child,  for  famine.  And,  with 
all  the  treasures  of  the  East  at  our  feet, 
we,  in  our  own  dominion,  could  not  find  a 
few  grains  of  rice,  for  a  people  that  asked 
of  us  no  more;  but  stood  by,  and  saw  five 
hundred  thousand  of  them  perish  of  hun- 
ger. 

Then,  after  agriculture,  the  art  of  kings, 
take  the  next  head  of  human  arts— Weav- 
ing; the  art  of  queens,  honored  of  all  noble 
Heathen  women,  in  the  person  of  their  vir- 
gin goddess— honored  of  all  Hebrew  women, 
176 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  LIFE  AND  ITS  ARTS 

by  the  word  of  their  wisest  king— "She 
layeth  her  hands  to  the  spindle,  and  her 
hands  hold  the  distaff.  She  stretcheth  out 
her  hand  to  the  poor.  She  is  not  afraid  of 
the  snow  for  her  household:  for  all  her 
household  are  clothed  with  scarlet.  She 
maketh  herself  covering  of  tapestry;  her 
clothing  is  silk  and  purple.  She  maketh  fine 
linen,  and  selleth  it;  and  delivereth  girdles 
to  the  merchant."  What  have  we  done  in 
all  these  thousands  of  years  with  this  bright 
art  of  Greek  maid  and  Christian  matron? 
Six  thousand  years  of  weaving,  and  have  we 
learned  to  weave?  Might  not  every  naked 
wall  have  been  purple  with  tapestry,  and 
every  feeble  breast  fenced  with  sweet  colors 
from  the  cold?  What  have  we  done?  Our 
fingers  are  too  few,  it  seems,  to  twist  to- 
gether some  poor  covering  for  our  bodies. 
We  set  our  streams  to  work  for  us,  and 
choke  the  air  with  fire,  to  turn  our  spin- 
ning-wheels—and,— are  we  yet  clothed?  Are 
not  the  streets  of  the  capitals  of  Europe 
foul  with  sale  of  cast  clouts  and  rotten  rags? 
Is  not  the  beauty  of  your  sweet  children 
left  in  wretchedness  of  disgrace,  while,  with 
better  honor,  nature  clothes  the  brood  of 
the  bird  in  its  nest,  and  the  suckling  of 
the  wolf  in  her  den?  And  does  not  every 
winter's  snow  robe  what  you  have  not 

12 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


robed,  and  shroud  what  you  have  not 
shrouded;  and  every  winter's  wind  bear  up 
to  heaven  its  wasted  souls,  to  witness 
against  you  hereafter,  by  the  voice  of  their 
Christ,— "I  was  naked,  and  ye  clothed  me 
not"? 

Lastly— take  the  Art  of  Building— the 
strongest— proudest— most  orderly— most 
enduring  of  the  arts  of  man;  that  of  which 
the  produce  is  in  the  surest  manner  ac- 
cumulative, and  need  not  perish,  or  be  re- 
placed; but  if  once  well  done,  will  stand 
more  strongly  than  the  unbalanced  rocks- 
more  prevalently  than  the  crumbling  hills. 
The  art  which  is  associated  with  all  civic 
pride  and  sacred  principle;  with  which  men 
record  their  power— satisfy  their  enthusi- 
asm—make sure  their  defense— define  and 
make  dear  their  habitation.  And  in  six 
thousand  years  of  building,  what  have  we 
done?  Of  the  greater  part  of  all  that  skill 
and  strength,  no  vestige  is  left,  but  fallen 
stones,  that  encumber  the  fields  and  im- 
pede the  streams.  But,  from  this  waste  of 
disorder,  and  of  time,  and  of  rage,  what  is 
left  to  us?  Constructive  and  progressive 
creatures  that  we  are,  with  ruling  brains, 
and  forming  hands,  capable  of  fellowship, 
and  thirsting  for  fame,  can  we  not  contend, 
in  comfort,  with  the  insects  of  the  forest, 
178 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  LIFE  AND  ITS  ARTS 

or,  in  achievement,  with  the  worm  of  the 
sea?  The  white  surf  rages  in  vain  against 
the  ramparts  built  by  poor  atoms  of  scarcely 
nascent  life;  but  only  ridges  of  formless 
ruin  mark  the  places  where  once  dwelt 
our  noblest  multitudes.  The  ant  and  the 
moth  have  cells  for  each  of  their  young, 
but  our  little  ones  lie  in  festering  heaps, 
in  homes  that  consume  them  like  graves; 
and  night  by  night,  from  the  corners  of 
our  streets,  rises  up  the  cry  of  the  home- 
less—"I  was  a  stranger,  and  ye  took  me 
not  in." 

Must  it  be  always  thus?  Is  our  life  for- 
ever to  be  without  profit— without  posses- 
sion? Shall  the  strength  of  its  generations 
be  as  barren  as  death;  or  cast  away  their 
labor,  as  the  wild  fig-tree  casts  her  untimely 
figs?  Is  it  all  a  dream  then,— the  desire  of 
the  eyes  and  the  pride  of  life,— or,  if  it  be, 
might  we  not  live  in  nobler  dream  than 
this?  The  poets  and  prophets,  the  wise 
men,  and  the  scribes,  though  they  have  told 
us  nothing  about  a  life  to  come,  have  told 
us  much  about  the  life  that  is  now.  They 
have  had— they  also— their  dreams,  and  we 
have  laughed  at  them.  They  have  dreamed 
of  mercy,  and  of  justice;  they  have  dreamed 
of  peace  and  good  will;  they  have  dreamed 
of  labor  undisappointed,  and  of  rest  undis- 
179 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


turbed;  they  have  dreamed  of  fullness  in 
harvest,  and  overflowing  in  store;  they 
have  dreamed  of  wisdom  in  council,  and  of 
providence  in  law;  of  gladness  of  parents, 
and  strength  of  children,  and  glory  of  gray 
hairs.  And  at  these  visions  of  theirs  we 
have  mocked,  and  held  them  for  idle  and 
vain,  unreal  and  unaccomplishable.  What 
have  we  accomplished  with  our  realities? 
Is  this  what  has  come  of  our  worldly  wis- 
dom, tried  against  their  folly?  this,  our 
mightiest  possible,  against  their  impotent 
ideal?  or,  have  we  only  wandered  among 
the  spectra  of  a  baser  felicity,  and  chased 
phantoms  of  the  tombs,  instead  of  visions 
of  the  Almighty;  and  walked  after  the  ima- 
ginations of  our  evil  hearts,  instead  of  after 
the  counsels  of  Eternity,  until  our  lives— 
not  in  the  likeness  of  the  cloud  of  heaven, 
but  of  the  smoke  of  hell— have  become  "as 
a  vapor,  that  appeareth  for  a  little  time, 
and  then  vanisheth  away"? 

Does  it  vanish  then?  Are  you  sure  of 
that?— sure  that  the  nothingness  of  the 
grave  will  be  a  rest  from  this  troubled 
nothingness;  and  that  the  coiling  shadow, 
which  disquiets  itself  in  vain,  cannot  change 
into  the  smoke  of  the  torment  that  ascends 
forever?  Will  any  answer  that  they  are 
sure  of  it,  and  that  there  is  no  fear,  nor 
180 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  LIFE  AND  ITS  ARTS 

hope,  nor  desire,  nor  labor,  whither  they 
go?  Be  it  so:  will  you  not,  then,  make  as 
sure  of  the  Life  that  now  is,  as  you  are  of 
the  Death  that  is  to  come?  Your  hearts 
are  wholly  in  this  world— will  you  not  give 
them  to  it  wisely,  as  well  as  perfectly  ?  And 
see,  first  of  all,  that  you  have  hearts,  and 
sound  hearts,  too,  to  give.  Because  you 
have  no  heaven  to  look  for,  is  that  any  rea- 
son that  you  should  remain  ignorant  of  this 
wonderful  and  infinite  earth,  which  is  firmly 
and  instantly  given  you  in  possession?  Al- 
though your  days  are  numbered,  and  the  fol- 
lowing darkness  sure,  is  it  necessary  that 
you  should  share  the  degradation  of  the 
brute,  because  you  are  condemned  to  its 
mortality;  or  live  the  life  of  the  moth,  and 
of  the  worm,  because  you  are  to  companion 
them  in  the  dust?  Not  so;  we  may  have 
but  a  few  thousands  of  days  to  spend,  per- 
haps hundreds  only— perhaps  tens;  nay, 
the  longest  of  our  time  and  best,  looked 
back  on,  will  be  but  as  a  moment,  as  the 
twinkling  of  an  eye;  still  we  are  men,  not 
insects;  we  are  living  spirits,  not  passing 
clouds.  "  He  maketh  the  winds  His  mes- 
sengers; the  momentary  fire,  His  minis- 
ter ";  and  shall  we  do  less  than  these  ?  Let 
us  do  the  work  of  men  while  we  bear  the 
form  of  them;  and,  as  we  snatch  our  nar- 
181 


SESAME  AND  LILIES 


row  portion  of  time  out  of  Eternity,  snatch 
also  our  narrow  inheritance  of  passion  out 
of  Immortality— even  though  our  lives  be 
as  a  vapor,  that  appeareth  for  a  little  time, 
and  then  vanisheth  away. 

But  there  are  some  of  you  who  believe 
not  this— who  think  this  cloud  of  life  has 
no  such  close— that  it  is  to  float,  revealed 
and  illumined,  upon  the  floor  of  heaven,  in 
the  day  when  He  cometh  with  clouds,  and 
every  eye  shall  see  Him.  Some  day,  you 
believe,  within  these  five,  or  ten,  or  twenty 
years,  for  every  one  of  us  the  judgment  will 
be  set,  and  the  books  opened.  If  that  be 
true,  far  more  than  that  must  be  true.  Is 
there  but  one  day  of  judgment?  Why,  for 
us  every  day  is  a  day  of  judgment— every 
day  is  a  Dies  Irae,  and  writes  its  irrevocable 
verdict  in  the  flame  of  its  West.  Think  you 
that  judgment  waits  till  the  doors  of  the 
grave  are  opened?  It  waits  at  the  doors  of 
your  houses— it  waits  at  the  corners  of 
your  streets;  we  are  in  the  midst  of  judg- 
ment—the insects  that  we  crush  are  our 
judges— the  moments  we  fret  away  are  our 
judges— the  elements  that  feed  us,  judge, 
as  they  minister— and  the  pleasures  that 
deceive  us,  judge,  as  they  indulge.  Let  us, 
for  our  lives,  do  the  work  of  Men  while 
we  bear  the  form  of  them,  if  indeed  those 
182 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  LIFE  AND  ITS  ARTS 

lives  are  Not  as  a  vapor,  and  do  Not  vanish 
away. 

"The  work  of  men"— and  what  is  that? 
Well,  we  may  any  of  us  know  very  quickly, 
on  the  condition  of  being  wholly  ready  to 
do  it.  But  many  of  us  are  for  the  most 
part  thinking,  not  of  what  we  are  to  do, 
but  of  what  we  are  to  get;  and  the  best  of 
us  are  sunk  into  the  sin  of  Ananias,  and  it 
is  a  mortal  one— we  want  to  keep  back  part 
of  the  price;  and  we  continually  talk  of  tak- 
ing up  our  cross,  as  if  the  only  harm  in  a 
cross  was  the  weight  of  it— as  if  it  was  only 
a  thing  to  be  carried,  instead  of  to  be— 
crucified  upon.  "They  that  are  His  have 
crucified  the  flesh  with  the  affections  and 
lusts."  Does  that  mean,  think  you,  that  in 
time  of  national  distress,  of  religious  trial, 
of  crisis  for  every  interest  and  hope  of 
humanity— none  of  us  will  cease  jesting, 
none  cease  idling,  none  put  themselves  to 
any  wholesome  work^none  take  so  much  as 
a  tag  of  lace  off  their  footmen's  coats,  to  , 

save  the  world?  Or  does  it  rather  mean, 
that  they  are  ready  to  leave  houses,  lands, 
and  kindreds— yes,  and  life,  if  need  be? 
Life!— some  of  us  are  ready  enough  to 
throw  that  away,  joyless  as  we  have  made 
it.  But  "station  in  Life  "—how  many  of  us 
are  ready  to  quit  that  ?  Is  it  not  always  the 
183 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


great  objection,  where  there  is  question  of 
finding  something  useful  to  do— "We  can- 
not leave  our  stations  in  Life  "? 

Those  of  us  who  really  cannot— that  is  to 
say,  who  can  only  maintain  themselves  by 
continuing  in  some  business  or  salaried 
office,  have  already  something  to  do;  and 
all  that  they  have  to  see  to  is  that  they  do 
it  honestly  and  with  all  their  might.  But 
with  most  people  who  use  that  apology, 
"remaining  in  the  station  of  life  to  which 
Providence  has  called  them  "  means  keeping 
all  the  carriages,  and  all  the  footmen  and 
large  houses  they  can  possibly  pay  for;  and, 
once  for  all,  I  say  that  if  ever  Providence 
did  put  them  into  stations  of  that  sort— 
which  is  not  at  all  a  matter  of  certainty- 
Providence  is  just  now  very  distinctly  call- 
ing them  out  again.  Levi's  station  in  life 
was  the  receipt  of  custom;  and  Peter's,  the 
shore  of  Galilee;  and  Paul's,  the  antecham- 
bers of  the  High  Priest,— which  "station 
in  life  "  each  had  to  leave,  with  brief  notice. 

And,  whatever  our  station  in  life  may  be, 
at  this  crisis,  those  of  us  who  mean  to  fulfil 
our  duty  ought  first  to  live  on  as  little  as 
we  can;  and,  secondly,  to  do  all  the  whole- 
some work  for  it  we  can,  and  to  spend  all 
we  can  spare  in  doing  all  the  sure  good  we 
can. 

184 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  LIFE  AND  ITS  ARTS 

And  sure  good  is,  first  in  feeding  people, 
then  in  dressing  people,  then  in  lodging 
people,  and  lastly  in  rightly  pleasing  people, 
with  arts,  or  sciences,  or  any  other  subject 
of  thought. 

I  say  first  in  feeding;  and,  once  for  all,  do 
not  let  yourselves  be  deceived  by  any  of  the 
common  talk  of  "indiscriminate  charity." 
The  order  to  us  is  not  to  feed  the  deserving 
hungry,  nor  the  industrious  hungry,  nor 
the  amiable  and  well-intentioned  hungry, 
but  simply  to  feed  the  hungry.  It  is  quite 
true,  infallibly  true,  that  if  any  man  will 
not  work,  neither  should  he  eat— think  of 
that,  and  every  time  you  sit  down  to  your 
dinner,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  say  solemnly, 
before  you  ask  a  blessing,  "  How  much  work 
have  I  done  to-day  for  my  dinner?"  But 
the  proper  way  to  enforce  that  order  on 
those  below  you,  as  well  as  on  yourselves, 
is  not  to  leave  vagabonds  and  honest  peo- 
ple to  starve  together,  but  very  distinctly 
to  discern  and  seize  your  vagabond;  and 
shut  your  vagabond  up  out  of  honest  peo- 
ple's way,  and  very  sternly  then  see  that, 
until  he  has  worked,  he  does  not  eat.  But 
the  first  thing  is  to  be  sure  you  have  the 
food  to  give;  and,  therefore,  to  enforce  the 
organization  of  vast  activities  in  agriculture 
and  in  commerce,  for  the  production  of  the 
185 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


wholesomest  food,  and  proper  storing  and 
distribution  of  it,  so  that  no  famine  shall 
any  more  be  possible  among  civilized  beings. 
There  is  plenty  of  work  in  this  business 
alone,  and  at  once,  for  any  number  of  peo- 
ple who  like  to  engage  in  it. 

Secondly,  dressing  people— that  is  to  say, 
urging  every  one  within  reach  of  your  in- 
fluence to  be  always  neat  and  clean,  and 
giving  them  means  of  being  so.  In  so  far 
as  they  absolutely  refuse,  you  must  give  up 
the  effort  with  respect  to  them,  only  taking 
care  that  no  children  within  your  sphere  of 
influence  shall  any  more  be  brought  up  with 
such  habits;  and  that  every  person  who  is 
willing  to  dress  with  propriety  shall  have 
encouragement  to  do  so.  And  the  first  ab- 
solutely necessary  step  toward  this  is  the 
gradual  adoption  of  a  consistent  dress  for 
different  ranks  of  persons,  so  that  their 
rank  shall  be  known  by  their  dress;  and  the 
restriction  of  the  changes  of  fashion  within 
certain  limits.  All  which  appears  for  the 
present  quite  impossible;  but  it  is  only  so 
far  even  difficult  as  it  is  difficult  to  conquer 
our  vanity,  frivolity,  and  desire  to  appear 
what  we  are  not.  And  it  is  not,  nor  ever 
shall  be,  creed  of  mine,  that  these  mean  and 
shallow  vices  are  unconquerable  by  Chris- 
tian women. 

186 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  LIFE  AND  ITS  ARTS 

And  then,  thirdly,  lodging  people,  which 
you  may  think  should  have  been  put  first, 
but  I  put  it  third,  because  we  must  feed  and 
clothe  people  where  we  find  them,  and  lodge 
them  afterwards.  And  providing  lodgment 
for  them  means  a  great  deal  of  vigorous 
legislature,  and  cutting  down  of  vested  in- 
terests that  stand  in  the  way,  and  after 
that,  or  before  that,  so  far  as  we  can  get  it, 
thorough  sanitary  and  remedial  action  in 
the  houses  that  we  have;  and  then  the 
building  of  more,  strongly,  beautifully,  and 
in  groups  of  limited  extent,  kept  in  propor- 
tion to  their  streams,  and  walled  round,  so 
that  there  may  be  no  festering  and  wretched 
suburb  anywhere,  but  clean  and  busy  street 
within,  and  the  open  country  without,  with 
a  belt  of  beautiful  garden  and  orchard 
round  the  walls,  so  that  from  any  part  of  the 
city  perfectly  fresh  air  and  grass,  and  sight 
of  far  horizon,  might  be  reachable  in  a  few 
minutes'  walk.  This  the  final  aim;  but  in 
immediate  action  every  minor  and  possible 
good  to  be  instantly  done,  when,  and  as,  we 
can;  roofs  mended  that  have  holes  in  them 
—fences  patched  that  have  gaps  in  them— 
walls  buttressed  that  totter— and  floors 
propped  that  shake;  cleanliness  and  order 
enforced  with  our  own  hands  and  eyes,  till 
we  are  breathless,  every  day.  And  all  the 
187 


SESAME   AND   LILIES 


fine  arts  will  healthily  follow.  I  myself 
have  washed  a  flight  of  stone  stairs  all 
down,  with  bucket  and  broom,  in  a  Savoy 
inn,  where  they  had  n't  washed  their  stairs 
since  they  first  went  up  them;  and  I  never 
made  a  better  sketch  than  that  afternoon. 
These,  then,  are  the  three  first  needs  of 
civilized  life;  and  the  law  for  every  Chris- 
tian man  and  woman  is  that  they  shall  be 
in  direct  service  towards  one  of  these  three 
needs,  as  far  as  is  consistent  with  their 
own  special  occupation,  and  if  they  have  no 
special  business,  then  wholly  in  one  of  these 
services.  And  out  of  such  exertion  in  plain 
duty  all  other  good  will  come;  for  in  this 
direct  contention  with  material  evil,  you 
will  find  out  the  real  nature  of  all  evil ;  you 
will  discern  by  the  various  kinds  of  resis- 
tance, what  is  really  the  fault  and  main 
antagonism  to  good;  also  you  will  find  the 
most  unexpected  helps  and  profound  les- 
sons given,  and  truths  will  come  thus  down 
to  us  which  the  speculation  of  all  our  lives 
would  never  have  raised  us  up  to.  You 
will  find  nearly  every  educational  problem 
solved,  as  soon  as  you  truly  want  to  do 
something;  everybody  will  become  of  use  in 
their  own  fittest  way,  and  will  learn  what 
is  best  for  them  to  know  in  that  use.  Com- 
petitive examination  will  then,  and  not  till 
188 


THE  MYSTERY  OP  LIFE  AND  ITS  ARTS 

then,  be  wholesome,  because  it  will  be  daily, 
and  calm,  and  in  practice;  and  on  these 
familiar  arts,  and  minute,  but  certain  and 
serviceable  knowledges,  will  be  surely  edified 
and  sustained  the  greater  arts  and  splendid 
theoretical  sciences. 

But  much  more  than  this.  On  such  holy 
and  simple  practice  will  be  founded,  indeed, 
at  last,  an  infallible  religion.  The  greatest 
of  all  the  mysteries  of  life,  and  the  most 
terrible,  is  the  corruption  of  even  the  sin- 
cerest  religion,  which  is  not  daily  founded 
on  rational,  effective,  humble,  and  helpful 
action.  Helpful  action,  observe!  for  there 
is  just  one  law,  which,  obeyed,  keeps  all 
religions  pure— forgotten,  makes  them  all 
false.  Whenever  in  any  religious  faith,  dark 
or  bright,  we  allow  our  minds  to  dwell  upon 
the  points  in  which  we  differ  from  other 
people,  we  are  wrong,  and  in  the  devil's 
power.  That  is 'the  essence  of  the  Phari- 
see's thanksgiving— "Lord,  I  thank  Thee, 
that  I  am  not  as  other  men  are."  At  every 
moment  of  our  lives  we  should  be  trying  to 
find  out,  not  in  what  we  differ  from  other 
people,  but  in  what  we  agree  with  them; 
and  the  moment  we  find  we  can  agree  as  to 
anything  that  should  be  done,  kind  or  good 
(and  who  but  fools  could  n't?),  then  do  it; 
push  at  it  together:  you  can't  quarrel  in  a 
189 


SESAME  AND   LILIES 


\.  side-by-side  push;  but  the  moment  that 
even  the  best  men  stop  pushing,  and  begin 
talking,  they  mistake  their  pugnacity  for 
piety,  and  it 's  all  over.  I  will  not  speak  of 
the  crimes  which  in  past  times  have  been 
committed  in  the  name  of  Christ,  nor  of 
the  follies  which  are  at  this  hour  held  to  be 
consistent  with  obedience  to  Him;  but  I 
mill  speak  of  the  morbid  corruption  and 
waste  of  vital  power  in  religious  sentiment, 
by  which  the  pure  strength  of  that  which 
should  be  the  guiding  soul  of  every  nation, 
the  splendor  of  its  youthful  manhood,  and 
spotless  light  of  its  maidenhood,  is  averted 
or  cast  away.  You  may  see  continually 
girls  who  have  never  been  taught  to  do  a 
single  useful  thing  thoroughly;  who  cannot 
sew,  who  cannot  cook,  who  cannot  cast  an 
account,  nor  prepare  a  medicine,  whose 
whole  life  has  been  passed  either  in  play  or 
in  pride;  you  will  find  girls  like  these,  when 
they  are  earnest-hearted,  cast  all  their  in- 
nate passion  of  religious  spirit,  which  was 
meant  by  God  to  support  them  through  the 
irksomeness  of  daily  toil,  into  grievous  and 
vain  meditation  over  the  meaning  of  the 
great  Book,  of  which  no  syllable  was  ever 
yet  to  be  understood  but  through  a  deed; 
all  the  instinctive  wisdom  and  mercy  of 
their  womanhood  made  vain,  and  the  glory 
190 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  LIFE  AND  ITS  ARTS 

of  their  pure  consciences  warped  into  fruit- 
less agony  concerning  questions  which  the 
laws  of  common  serviceable  life  would  have 
either  solved  for  them  in  an  instant,  or  kept 
out  of  their  way.  Give  such  a  girl  any  true 
work  that  will  make  her  active  in  the  dawn, 
and  weary  at  night,  with  the  consciousness 
that  her  fellow-creatures  have  indeed  been 
the  better  for  her  day,  and  the  powerless 
sorrow  of  her  enthusiasm  will  transform 
itself  into  a  majesty  of  radiant  and  benefi- 
cent peace. 

So  with  our  youths.  We  once  taught 
them  to  make  Latin  verses,  and  called  them 
educated;  now  we  teach  them  to  leap  and 
to  row,  to  hit  a  ball  with  a  bat,  and  call 
them  educated.  Can  they  plow,  can  they 
sow,  can  they  plant  at  the  right  time,  or 
build  with  a  steady  hand?  Is  it  the  effort 
of  their  lives  to  be  chaste,  knightly,  faith- 
ful, holy  in  thought,  lovely  in  word  and 
deed?  Indeed  it  is,  with  some,  nay,  with 
many,  and  the  strength  of  England  is  in 
them,  and  the  hope;  but  we  have  to  turn 
their  courage  from  the  toil  of  war  to  the 
toil  of  mercy;  and  their  intellect  from  dis- 
pute of  words  to  discernment  of  things; 
and  their  knighthood  from  the  errantry 
of  adventure  to  the  state  and  fidelity  of 
a  kingly  power.  And  then,  indeed,  shall 
191 


SESAME  AND  LILIES 


abide,  for  them  and  for  us,  an  incorruptible 
felicity,  and  an  infallible  religion;  shall  abide 
for  us  Faith,  no  more  to  be  assailed  by 
temptation,  no  more  to  be  defended  by 
wrath  and  by  fear;— shall  abide  with  us 
Hope,  no  more  to  be  quenched  by  the  years 
that  overwhelm,  or  made  ashamed  by  the 
shadows  that  betray:— shall  abide  for  us, 
and  with  us,  the  greatest  of  these;  the 
abiding  will,  the  abiding  name  of  our  Father. 
For  the  greatest  of  these  is  Charity. 


192 


THE  CROWN   OP   WILD   OLIVE 


13 


INTRODUCTION 


TWENTY  years  ago,  there  was  no  lovelier 
piece  of  lowland  scenery  in  South  England, 
nor  any  more  pathetic,  in  the  world,  by  its 
expression  of  sweet  human  character  and  life, 
than  that  immediately  bordering  on  the  sources 
of  the  Wandel,  and  including  the  low  moors  of 
Addington,  and  the  villages  of  Beddington  and 
Carshalton,  with  all  their  pools  and  streams. 
No  clearer  or  diviner  waters  ever  sang  with  con- 
stant lips  of  the  hand  which  "giveth  rain  from 
heaven";  no  pastures  ever  lightened  in  spring- 
time with  more  passionate  blossoming ;  no  sweeter 
homes  ever  hallowed  the  heart  of  the  passer-by 
with  their  pride  of  peaceful  gladness, — fain- 
hidden —  yet  full-confessed.  The  place  remains 
(1870)  nearly  unchanged  in  its  larger  features; 
but  with  deliberate  mind  I  say  that  I  have  never 
seen  anything  so  ghastly  in  its  inner  tragic  mean- 
ing,—  not  in  Pisan  Maremma, —  not  by  Campagna 
tomb, —  not  by  the  sand-isles  of  the  Torcellan 
shore, — as  the  slow  stealing  of  aspects  of  reck- 
less, indolent,  animal  neglect,  over  the  delicate 

'  Called  the  "  Preface "  in  former  editions ;  it  is  one  of  my 
bad  habits  to  put  half  my  books  into  preface.  Of  this  one, 
the  only  prefatory  thing  I  have  to  say  is  that  most  of  the  con- 
tents are  stated  more  fully  in  my  other  volumes ;  but  here 
are  put  in  what,  at  least,  I  meant  to  be  a  more  popular  form, 
all  but  this  introduction,  which  was  written  very  carefully  to 
be  read,  not  spoken,  and  the  last  lecture  on  the  Future  of 
England,  with  which,  and  the  following  notes  on  it,  I  have 
taken  extreme  pains. 

195 


INTRODUCTION 


sweetness  of  that  English  scene :  nor  is  any  blas- 
phemy or  impiety,  any  frantic  saying,  or  god- 
less thought,  more  appalling  to  me,  using  the 
best  power  of  judgment  I  have  to  discern  its  sense 
and  scope,  than  the  insolent  defiling  of  those 
springs  by  the  human  herds  that  drink  of  them. 
Just  where  the  welling  of  stainless  water,  trem- 
bling and  pure,  like  a  body  of  light,  enters  the 
pool  of  Carshalton,  cutting  itself  a  radiant  chan- 
nel down  to  the  gravel,  through  warp  of  feathery 
weeds,  all  waving,  which  it  traverses  with  its 
deep  threads  of  clearness,  like  the  chalcedony 
in  moss-agate,  starred  here  and  there  with  the 
white  grenouillette ;  just  in  the  very  rush  and 
murmur  of  the  first  spreading  currents,  the 
human  wretches  of  the  place  cast  their  street 
and  house  foulness  ;  heaps  of  dust  and  slime,  and 
broken  shreds  of  old  metal,  and  rags  of  putrid 
clothes;  which,  having  neither  energy  to  cart 
away,  nor  decency  enough  to  dig  into  the  ground, 
they  thus  shed  into  the  stream,  to  diffuse  what 
venom  of  it  will  float  and  melt,  far  away,  in  all 
places  where  God  meant  those  waters  to  bring 
joy  and  health.  And,  in  a  little  pool  behind 
some  houses  farther  in  the  village,  where  another 
spring  rises,  the  shattered  stones  of  the  well,  and 
of  the  little  fretted  channel  which  was  long  ago 
built  and  traced  for  it  by  gentler  hands,  lie  scat- 
tered, each  from  each,  under  a  ragged  bank  of 
mortar,  and  scoria,  and  bricklayer's  refuse,  on 
one  side,  which  the  clean  water  nevertheless 
chastises  to  purity ;  but  it  cannot  conquer  the 
dead  earth  beyond :  and  there,  circled  and  coiled 
under  festering  scum,  the  stagnant  edge  of  the 
pool  effaces  itself  into  a  slope  of  black  slime,  the 
accumulation  of  indolent  years.  Half  a  dozen 

1% 


INTRODUCTION 


men  with  one  day's  work  could  cleanse  those 
pools,  and  trim  the  flowers  about  their  banks, 
and  make  every  breath  of  summer  air  above 
them  rich  with  cool  balm,  and  every  glittering 
wave  medicinal,  as  if  it  ran,  troubled  only  of 
angels,  from  the  porch  of  Bethesda.  But  that 
day's  work  is  never  given,  nor,  I  suppose,  will 
be  ;  nor  will  any  joy  be  possible  to  heart  of  man, 
forevermore,  about  those  wells  of  English  waters. 
When  I  last  left  them,  I  walked  up  slowly 
through  the  back  streets  of  Croydon,  from  the 
old  church  to  the  hospital ;  and,  just  on  the  left, 
before  coming  up  to  the  crossing  of  the  High 
Street,  there  was  a  new  public  house  built.  And 
the  front  of  it  was  built  in  so  wise  manner  that  a 
recess  of  two  feet  was  left  below  its  front  win- 
dows, between  them  and  the  street-pavement ;  a 
recess  too  narrow  for  any  possible  use  (for  even 
if  it  had  been  occupied  by  a  seat,  as  in  old  time 
it  might  have  been,  everybody  walking  along 
the  street  would  have  fallen  over  the  legs  of  the 
reposing  wayfarer).  But,  by  way  of  making  this 
two  feet  depth  of  freehold  land  more  expressive 
of  the  dignity  of  an  establishment  for  the  sale  of 
spirituous  liquors,  it  was  fenced  from  the  pave- 
ment by  an  imposing  iron  railing,  having  four  or 
five  spear-heads  to  the  yard  of  it,  and  six  feet 
high ;  containing  as  much  iron  and  ironwork, 
indeed,  as  could  well  be  put  into  the  space ;  and 
by  this  stately  arrangement,  the  little  piece  of 
dead  ground  within,  between  wall  and  street, 
became  a  protective  receptacle  of  refuse ;  cigar 
ends,  and  oyster  shells,  and  the  like,  such  as  an 
open-handed  English  street-populace  habitually 
scatters  ;  and  was  thus  left,  unsweepable  by  any 
ordinary  methods.  Now  the  iron  bars  which 

197 


INTRODUCTION 


uselessly  (or  in  great  degree  worse  than  uselessly) 
inclosed  this  bit  of  ground,  and  made  it  pestilent, 
represented  a  quantity  of  work  which  would 
have  cleansed  the  Carshalton  pools  three  times 
over :  of  work,  partly  cramped  and  perilous,  in 
the  mine ;  partly  grievous  and  horrible,  at  the  fur- 
nace; partly  foolish  and  sedentary,  of  ill-taught 
students  making  bad  designs ;  work  from  the 
beginning  to  the  last  fruits  of  it,  and  in  all  the 
branches  of  it,  venomous,  deathful^and  miserable. 

Now,  how  did  it  come  to  pass  that  this  work 
was  done  instead  of  the  other ;  that  the  strength 
and  life  of  the  English  operative  were  spent  in 
defiling  ground,  instead  of  redeeming  it,  and  in 
producing  an  entirely  (in  that  place)  valueless 
piece  of  metal,  which  can  neither  be  eaten  nor 
breathed,  instead  of  medicinal  fresh  air  and  pure 
water  ? 

There  is  but  one  reason  for  it,  and  at  present  a 
conclusive  one, — that  the  capitalist  can  charge 
percentage  on  the  work  in  the  one  case,  and 
cannot  in  the  other.  If,  having  certain  funds 
for  supporting  labor  at  my  disposal,  I  pay  men 

1  "A  fearful  occurrence  took  place  a  few  days  since,  near 
Wolverhampton.  Thomas  Snape,  aged  nineteen,  was  on  duty 
as  the  '  keeper '  of  a  blast-furnace  at  Deepfield,  assisted  by 
John  Gardner,  aged  eighteen,  and  Joseph  Swift,  aged  thirty- 
seven.  The  furnace  contained  four  tons  of  molten  iron,  and 
an  equal  amount  of  cinders,  and  ought  to  have  been  run  out 
at  7.30  P.M.  But  Snape  and  his  mates,  engaged  in  talking  and 
drinking,  neglected  their  duty,  and,  in  the  meantime,  the  iron 
rose  in  the  furnace  until  it  reached  a  pipe  wherein  water  was 
contained.  Just  as  the  men  had  stripped,  and  were  proceed- 
ing to  tap  the  furnace,  the  water  in  the  pipe,  converted  into 
steam,  burst  down  its  front  and  let  loose  on  them  the  molten 
metal,  which  instantaneously  consumed  Qardner;  Snape, 
terribly  burned,  and  mad  with  pain,  leaped  into  the  canal  and 
then  ran  home  and  fell  dead  on  the  threshold ;  Swift  survived 
to  reach  the  hospital,  where  he  died  too." 

198 


INTRODUCTION 


merely  to  keep  my  ground  in  order,  my  money 
is,  in  that  function,  spent  once  for  all ;  but  if  I 
pay  them  to  dig  iron  out  of  my  ground,  and  work 
it,  and  sell  it,  I  can  charge  rent  for  the  ground, 
and  percentage  both  on  the  manufacture  and  the 
sale,  and  make  my  capital  profitable  in  these 
three  byways.  The  greater  part  of  the  profitable 
investment  of  capital,  in  the  present  day,  is  in 
operations  of  this  kind,  in  which  the  public  is 
persuaded  to  buy  something  of  no  use  to  it,  on 
production  or  sale  of  which  the  capitalist  may 
charge  percentage ;  the  said  public  remaining 
all  the  while  under  the  persuasion  that  the  per- 
centages thus  obtained  are  real  national  gains, 
whereas,  they  are  merely  filchings  out  of  light 
pockets,  to  swell  heavy  ones. 

Thus,  the  Croydon  publican  buys  the  iron  rail- 
ing, to  make  himself  more  conspicuous  to  drunk- 
ards. The  public-house  keeper  on  the  other  side 
of  the  way  presently  buys  another  railing,  to 
outrail  him  with.  Both  are,  as  to  their  relative 
attractiveness,  just  where  they  were  before  ;  but 
they  have  both  lost  the  price  of  the  railings ; 
which  they  must  either  themselves  finally  lose, 
or  make  their  aforesaid  customers,  the  amateurs 
of  railings,  pay,  by  raising  the  price  of  their  beer, 
or  adulterating  it.  Either  the  publicans,  or  their 
customers,  are  thus  poorer  by  precisely  what  the 
capitalist  has  gained ;  and  the  value  of  the  indus- 
try itself,  meantime,  has  been  lost  to  the  nation ; 
the  iron  bars,  in  that  forjn  and  place,  being 
wholly  useless. 

It  is  this  mode  of  taxation  of  the  poor  by  the 
rich  which  is  referred  to  in  the  text  (§  34),1  in 
comparing  the  modern  acquisitive  power  of  capi- 

1  Page  233. 

199 


INTRODUCTION 


tal  with  that  of  the  lance  and  sword ;  the  only 
difference  being  that  the  levy  of  blackmail  in 
old  times  was  by  force,  and  is  now  by  cozening. 
The  old  rider  and  reaver  frankly  quartered  him- 
self on  the  publican  for  the  night ; — the  modern 
one  merely  makes  his  lance  into  an  iron  spike, 
and  persuades  his  host  to  buy  it.  One  comes  as 
an  open  robber,  the  other  as  a  cheating  peddler ; 
but  the  result,  to  the  injured  person's  pocket,  is 
absolutely  the  same.  Of  course  many  useful  in- 
dustries mingle  with,  and  disguise  the  useless 
ones ;  and  in  the  habits  of  energy  aroused  by  the 
struggle,  there  is  a  certain  direct  good.  It  is 
better  to  spend  four  thousand  pounds  in  making 
a  gun,  and  then  to  blow  it  to  pieces,  than  to  pass 
life  in  idleness.  Only  do  not  let  the  proceeding 
be  called  "  political  economy." 

There  is  also  a  confused  notion  in  the  minds  of 
many  persons,  that  the  gathering  of  the  property 
of  the  poor  into  the  hands  of  the  rich  does  no 
ultimate  harm ;  since,  in  whosesoever  hands  it 
may  be,  it  must  be  spent  at  last ;  and  thus,  they 
think,  return  to  the  poor  again.  This  fallacy  has 
been  again  and  again  exposed  ;  but  granting  the 
plea  true,  the  same  apology  may,  of  course,  be 
made  for  blackmail,  or  any  other  form  of  rob- 
bery. It  might  be  (though  practically  it  never 
is)  as  advantageous  for  the  nation  that  the  robber 
should  have  the  spending  of  the  money  he  ex- 
torts, as  that  the  person  robbed  should  have  spent 
it.  But  this  is  no  excuse  for  the  theft.  If  I  were 
to  put  a  turnpike  on  the  road  where  it  passes  my 
own  gate,  and  endeavor  to  exact  a  shilling  from 
every  passenger,  the  public  would  soon  do  away 
with  my  gate,  without  listening  to  any  plea  on 
my  part  that  "it  was  as  advantageous  to  them, 

200 


INTRODUCTION 


in  the  end,  that  I  should  spend  their  shillings,  as 
that  they  themselves  should."  But  if,  instead  of 
outfacing  them  with  a  turnpike,  I  can  only  per- 
suade them  to  come  in  and  buy  stones,  or  old 
iron,  or  any  such  useless  thing,  out  of  my  ground, 
I  may  rob  them  to  the  same  extent,  and  be,  more- 
over, thanked  as  a  public  benefactor,  and  pro- 
moter of  commercial  prosperity.  And  this  main 
question  for  the  poor  of  England  —  for  the  poor 
of  all  countries  —  is  wholly  omitted  in  every 
common  treatise  on  the  subject  of  wealth.  Even 
by  the  laborers  themselves,  the  operation  of  capi- 
tal is  regarded  only  in  its  effect  on  their  imme- 
diate interests ;  never  in  the  far  more  terrific 
power  of  its  appointment  of  the  kind  and  the  ob- 
ject of  labor.  It  matters  little,  ultimately,  how 
much  a  laborer  is  paid  for  making  anything  ;  but 
it  matters  fearfully  what  the  thing  is,  which  he 
is  compelled  to  make.  If  his  labor  is  so  ordered 
as  to  produce  food,  and  fresh  air,  and  fresh  water, 
no  matter  that  his  wages  are  low  ; —  the  food  and 
fresh  air  and  water  will  be  at  last  there  ;  and  he 
will  at  last  get  them.  But  if  he  is  paid  to  destroy 
food  and  fresh  air,  or  to  produce  iron  bars  instead 
of  them, — the  food  and  air  will  finally  not  be 
there,  and  he  will  not  get  them,  to  his  great  and 
final  inconvenience. 

I  have  been  long  accustomed,  as  all  men  en- 
gaged in  work  of  investigation  must  be,  to  hear 
my  statements  laughed  at  for  years,  before  they 
are  examined  or  believed ;  and  I  am  generally 
content  to  wait  the  public's  time.  But  it  has  not 
been  without  displeased  surprise  that  I  have 
found  myself  totally  unable,  as  yet,  by  any  repe- 
tition, or  illustration,  to  force  this  plain  thought 
into  my  readers'  heads, — that  the  wealth  of 

201 


INTRODUCTION 


nations,  as  of  men,  consists  in  substance,  not  in 
ciphers ;  and  that  the  real  good  of  all  work,  and 
of  all  commerce,  depends  on  the  final  intrinsic 
worth  of  the  thing  you  make,  or  get  by  it.1  This 
is  a  "practical"  enough  statement,  one  would 
think :  but  the  English  public  has  been  so  pos- 
sessed by  its  modern  school  of  economists  with 
the  notion  that  Business  is  always  good,  whether 
it  be  busy  in  mischief  or  in  benefit ;  and  that  buy- 
ing and  selling  are  always  salutary,  whatever  the 
intrinsic  worth  of  what  you  buy  or  sell,  that  it 
seems  impossible  to  gain  so  much  as  a  patient 
hearing  for  any  inquiry  respecting  the  substan- 
tial result  of  our  eager  modern  labor. 

I  have  never  felt  more  checked  by  the  sense 
of  this  impossibility  than  in  arranging  the  heads 
of  the  following  lectures,  which,  though  delivered 
at  considerable  intervals  of  time,  and  in  different 
places,  were  not  prepared  without  reference  to 
each  other.  Their  connection  would,  however, 
have  been  made  far  more  distinct,  if  I  had  not 
been  prevented,  by  what  I  feel  to  be  another 
great  difficulty  in  addressing  English  audiences, 
from  enforcing,  with  any  decision,  the  common, 
and  to  me  the  most  important,  part  of  their  sub- 
jects. I  chiefly  desired  to  question  my  hearers  — 
operatives,  merchants,  and  soldiers  —  as  to  the 
ultimate  meaning  of  the  business  they  had  in 
hand;  and  to  know  from  them  what  they  ex- 
pected or  intended  their  manufacture  to  come  to, 
their  selling  to  come  to,  and  their  killing  to  come 
to.  That  appeared  the  first  point  needing  de- 
termination before  I  could  speak  to  them  with 
any  real  utility  or  effect.  "You  craftsmen  — 
salesmen  —  swordsmen  —  do  but  tell  me  clearly 
1  Compare  Preface  to  "  Munera  Pulveris." 

202 


INTRODUCTION 


what  you  want ;  then,  if  I  can  say  anything  to 
help  you,  I  will ;  and  if  not,  I  will  account  to  you 
as  I  best  may  for  my  inability." 

But  in  order  to  put  this  question  into  any 
terms,  one  had  first  of  all  to  face  a  difficulty, —  to 
me  for  the  present  insuperable, — the  difficulty 
of  knowing  whether  to  address  one's  audience  as 
believing,  or  not  believing,  in  any  other  world 
than  this.  For  if  you  address  any  average  mod- 
ern English  company  as  believing  in  an  Eternal 
life,  and  then  endeavor  to  draw  any  conclusions 
from  this  assumed  belief,  as  to  their  present  busi- 
ness, they  will  forthwith  tell  you  that  "  what  you 
say  is  very  beautiful,  but  it  is  not  practical."  If, 
on  the  contrary,  you  frankly  address  them  as 
unbelievers  in  Eternal  life,  and  try  to  draw  any 
consequences  from  that  unbelief,  they  immedi- 
ately hold  you  for  an  accursed  person,  and  shake 
off  the  dust  from  their  feet  at  you. 

And  the  more  I  thought  over  what  I  had  got  to 
say,  the  less  I  found  I  could  say  it,  without  some 
reference  to  this  intangible  or  intractable  ques- 
tion. It  made  all  the  difference,  in  asserting  any 
principle  of  war,  whether  one  assumed  that  a 
discharge  of  artillery  would  merely  knead  down 
a  certain  quantity  of  once  living  clay  into  a  level 
line,  as  in  a  brick-field  ;  or  whether,  out  of  every 
separately  Christian-named  portion  of  the  ruinous 
heap,  there  went  out,  into  the  smoke  and  dead- 
fallen  air  of  battle,  some  astonished  condition  of 
soul,  unwillingly  released.  It  made  all  the  differ- 
ence, in  speaking  of  the  possible  range  of  com- 
merce, whether  one  assumed  that  all  bargains 
related  only  to  visible  property ;  or  whether 
property,  for  the  present  invisible,  but  neverthe- 
less real,  was  elsewhere  purchasable  on  other 

203 


INTRODUCTION 


terms.  It  made  all  the  difference,  in  addressing 
a  body  of  men  subject  to  considerable  hardship, 
and  having  to  find  some  way  out  of  it  —  whether 
one  could  confidently  say  to  them,  "My  friends, 
—  you  have  only  to  die,  and  all  will  be  right";  or 
whether  one  had  any  secret  misgiving  that  such 
advice  was  more  blessed  to  him  that  gave  than 
to  him  that  took  it. 

And  therefore  the  deliberate  reader  will  find, 
throughout  these  lectures,  a  hesitation  in  driving 
points  home,  and  a  pausing  short  of  conclusions 
which  he  will  feel  I  would  fain  have  come  to ; — 
hesitation  which  arises  wholly  from  this  uncer- 
tainty of  my  hearers'  temper.  For  I  do  not  speak, 
nor  have  I  ever  spoken,  since  the  time  of  first 
forward  youth,  in  any  proselytizing  temper,  as 
desiring  to  persuade  any  one  to  believe  anything ; 
but  whomsoever  I  venture  to  address,  I  take,  for 
the  time,  his  creed  as  I  find  it ;  and  endeavor  to 
push  it  into  such  vital  fruit  as  it  seems  capable 
of.  Thus,  it  is  a  creed  with  a  great  part  of  the 
existing  English  people,  that  they  are  in  posses- 
sion of  a  book  which  tells  them,  straight  from 
the  lips  of  God,  all  they  ought  to  do,  and  need  to 
know.  I  have  read  that  book,  with  as  much  care 
as  most  of  them,  for  some  forty  years ;  and  am 
thankful  that,  on  those  who  trust  it,  I  can  press 
its  pleadings.  My  endeavor  has  been  uniformly 
to  make  them  trust  it  more  deeply  than  they  do ; 
trust  it,  not  in  their  own  favorite  verses  only, 
but  in  the  sum  of  all ;  trust  it,  not  as  a  fetish  or 
talisman,  which  they  are  to  be  saved  by  daily 
repetitions  of;  but  as  a  Captain's  order,  to  be 
heard  and  obeyed  at  their  peril.  I  was  always 
encouraged  by  supposing  my  hearers  to  hold 
such  belief.  To  these,  if  to  any,  I  once  had  hope 

204 


INTRODUCTION 


of  addressing,  with  acceptance,  words  which  in- 
sisted on  the  guilt  of  pride,  and  the  futility  of 
avarice ;  from  these,  if  from  any,  I  once  expected 
ratification  of  a  political  economy,  which  asserted 
that  the  life  was  more  than  the  meat,  and  the 
body  than  raiment ;  and  these,  it  once  seemed  to 
me,  I  might  ask,  without  being  accused  of  fanati- 
cism, not  merely  in  doctrine  of  the  lips,  but  in  the 
bestowal  of  their  heart's  treasure,  to  separate 
themselves  from  the  crowd  of  whom  it  is  written, 
"After  all  these  things  do  the  Gentiles  seek." 

It  cannot,  however,  be  assumed,  with  any  sem- 
blance of  reason,  that  a  general  audience  is  now 
wholly,  or  even  in  majority,  composed  of  these 
religious  persons.  A  large  portion  must  always 
consist  of  men  who  admit  no  such  creed ;  or  who, 
at  least,  are  inaccessible  to  appeals  founded  on  it. 
And  as,  with  the  so-called  Christian,  I  desired  to 
plead  for  honest  declaration  and  fulfilment  of  his 
belief  in  life, —  with  the  so-called  Infidel,  I  de- 
sired to  plead  for  an  honest  declaration  and  ful- 
filment of  his  belief  in  death.  The  dilemma  is 
inevitable.  Men  must  either  hereafter  live,  or 
hereafter  die ;  fate  may  be  bravely  met,  and  con- 
duct wisely  ordered,  on  either  expectation ;  but 
never  in  hesitation  between  ungrasped  hope,  and 
unconfronted  fear.  We  usually  believe  in  im- 
mortality, so  far  as  to  avoid  preparation  for 
death ;  and  in  mortality,  so  far  as  to  avoid  prepa- 
ration for  anything  after  death.  Whereas,  a 
wise  man  will  at  least  hold  himself  ready  for  one 
or  other  of  two  events,  of  which  one  or  other  is 
inevitable;  and  will  have  all  things  ended  in 
order,  for  his  sleep,  or  left  in  order,  for  his 
awakening. 

Nor  have  we  any  right  to  call  it  an  ignoble 

205 


INTRODUCTION 


judgment,  if  he  determine  to  end  them  in  order, 
as  for  sleep.  A  brave  belief  in  life  is  indeed  an 
enviable  state  of  mind,  but  as  far  as  I  can  discern, 
an  unusual  one.  I  know  few  Christians  so  con- 
vinced of  the  splendor  of  the  rooms  in  their 
Father's  house,  as  to  be  happier  when  their 
friends  are  called  to  those  mansions,  than  they 
would  have  been  if  the  Queen  had  sent  for  them 
to  live  at  Court :  nor  has  the  Church's  most  ar- 
dent "desire  to  depart,  and  be  with  Christ,"  ever 
cured  it  of  the  singular  habit  of  putting  on 
mourning  for  every  person  summoned  to  such 
departure.  On  the  contrary,  a  brave  belief  in 
death  has  been  assuredly  held  by  many  not 
ignoble  persons ;  and  it  is  a  sign  of  the  last  de- 
pravity in  the  Church  itself,  when  it  assumes 
that  such  a  belief  is  inconsistent  with  either 
purity  of  character,  or  energy  of  hand.  The 
shortness  of  life  is  not,  to  any  rational  person,  a 
conclusive  reason  for  wasting  the  space  of  it 
which  may  be  granted  him  ;  nor  does  the  antici- 
pation of  death,  to-morrow,  suggest,  to  any  one 
but  a  drunkard,  the  expediency  of  drunkenness 
to-day.  To  teach  that  there  is  no  device  in  the 
grave,  may  indeed  make  the  deviceless  person 
more  contented  in  his  dullness :  but  it  will  make 
the  deviser  only  more  earnest  in  devising  :  nor  is 
human  conduct  likely,  in  every  case,  to  be  purer, 
under  the  conviction  that  all  its  evil  may  in  a 
moment  be  pardoned,  and  all  its  wrong-doing  in 
a  moment  redeemed ;  and  that  the  sigh  of  repen- 
tance, which  purges  the  guilt  of  the  past,  will 
waft  the  soul  into  a  felicity  which  forgets  its 
pain, — than  it  may  be  under  the  sterner,  and  to 
many  not  unwise  minds,  more  probable,  appre- 
hension, that  "what  a  man  soweth,  that  shall  he 

206 


INTRODUCTION 


also  reap  " —  or  others  reap, —  when  he,  the  living 
seed  of  pestilence,  walketh  no  more  in  darkness, 
but  lies  down  therein. 

But  to  men  for  whom  feebleness  of  sight,  or 
bitterness  of  soul,  or  the  offense  given  by  the 
conduct  of  those  who  claim  higher  hope,  may 
have  rendered  this  painful  creed  the  only  pos- 
sible one,  there  is  an  appeal  to  be  made,  more 
secure  than  any  which  can  be  addressed  to  hap- 
pier persons.  Might  not  a  preacher,  in  comfort- 
less, but  faithful,  zeal  —  from  the  poor  height  of  a 
grave-hillock  for  his  Hill  of  Mars,  and  with  the 
Cave  of  the  Eumenides  at  his  side  —  say  to  them 
thus  :  Hear  me,  you  dying  men,  who  will  soon  be 
deaf  forever.  For  these  others,  at  your  right 
hand  and  your  left,  who  look  forward  to  a  state 
of  infinite  existence,  in  which  all  their  errors  will 
be  overruled,  and  all  their  faults  forgiven  ; —  for 
these,  who,  stained  and  blackened  in  the  battle- 
smoke  of  mortality,  have  but  to  dip  themselves 
for  an  instant  in  the  font  of  death,  and  to  rise 
renewed  of  plumage,  as  a  dove  that  is  covered 
with  silver,  and  her  feathers  like  gold: —  for  these, 
indeed,  it  may  be  permissible  to  waste  their 
numbered  moments,  through  faith  in  a  future  of 
innumerable  hours ;  to  these,  in  their  weakness, 
it  may  be  conceded  that  they  should  tamper  with 
sin  which  can  only  bring  forth  fruit  of  righteous- 
ness, and  profit  by  the  iniquity  which,  one  day, 
will  be  remembered  no  more.  In  them,  it  may 
be  no  sign  of  hardness  of  heart  to  neglect  the 
poor,  over  whom  they  know  their  Master  is 
watching;  and  to  leave  those  to  perish  tempo- 
rarily, who  cannot  perish  eternally.  But  for 
you  there  is  no  such  hope,  and  therefore  no  such 
excuse.  This  fate,  which  you  ordain  for  the 

207 


INTRODUCTION 


wretched,  you  believe  to  be  all  their  inheritance ; 
you  may  crush  them,  before  the  moth,  and  they 
will  never  rise  to  rebuke  you  ; —  their  breath, 
which  fails  for  lack  of  food,  once  expiring,  will 
never  be  recalled  to  whisper  against  you  a  word 
of  accusing; — they  and  you,  as  you  think,  shall 
lie  down  together  in  the  dust,  and  the  worms 
cover  you ;  and  for  them  there  shall  be  no  con- 
solation, and  on  you  no  vengeance, —  only  the 
question  murmured  above  your  grave:  "Who 
shall  repay  him  what  he  hath  done  ?  "  Is  it  there- 
fore easier  for  you,  in  your  heart,  to  inflict  the 
sorrow  for  which  there  is  no  remedy  ?  Will  you 
take,  wantonly,  this  little  all  of  his  life  from  your 
poor  brother,  and  make  his  brief  hours  long  to 
him  with  pain  ?  Will  you  be  more  prompt  to  the 
injustice  which  can  never  be  redressed ;  and  more 
niggardly  of  the  mercy  which  you  can  bestow 
but  once,  and  which,  refusing,  you  refuse  forever? 
I  think  better  of  you,  even  of  the  most  selfish, 
than  that  you  would  act  thus,  well  understanding 
your  act.  And  for  yourselves,  it  seems  to  me, 
the  question  becomes  not  less  grave  when  brought 
into  these  curt  limits.  If  your  life  were  but  a 
fever  fit, —  the  madness  of  a  night,  whose  follies 
were  all  to  be  forgotten  in  the  dawn,  it  might 
matter  little  how  you  fretted  away  the  sickly 
hours, —  what  toys  you  snatched  at  or  let  fall, — 
what  visions  you  followed,  wistfully,  with  the 
deceived  eyes  of  sleepless  frenzy.  Is  the  earth 
only  an  hospital  ?  are  health.and  heaven  to  come  ? 
Then  play,  if  you  care  to  play,  on  the  floor  of  the 
hospital  dens.  Knit  its  straw  into  what  crowns 
please  you ;  gather  the  dust  of  it  for  treasure,  and 
die  rich  in  that,  though  clutching  at  the  black 
motes  in  the  air  with  your  dying  hands ; —  and 

208 


INTRODUCTION 


yet,  it  may  be  well  with  you.  But  if  this  life  be 
no  dream,  and  the  world  no  hospital,  but  your 
palace-inheritance; — if  all  the  peace  and  power 
and  joy  you  can  ever  win,  must  be  won  now,  and 
all  fruit  of  victory  gathered  here,  or  never ; —  will 
you  still,  throughout  the  puny  totality  of  your 
life,  weary  yourselves  in  the  fire  for  vanity  ?  If 
there  is  no  rest  which  remaineth  for  you,  is  there 
none  you  might  presently  take?  was  this  grass 
of  the  earth  made  green  for  your  shroud  only, 
not  for  your  bed?  and  can  you  never  lie  down 
upon  it,  but  only  under  it  ?  The  heathen,  in  their 
saddest  hours,  thought  not  so.  They  knew  that 
life  brought  its  contest,  but  they  expected  from 
it  also  the  crown  of  all  contest :  No  proud  one ! 
no  jeweled  circlet  flaming  through  Heaven  above 
the  height  of  the  unmerited  throne ;  only  some 
few  leaves  of  wild  olive,  cool  to  the  tired  brow, 
through  a  few  years  of  peace.  It  should  have 
been  of  gold,  they  thought ;  but  Jupiter  was  poor ; 
this  was  the  best  the  god  could  give  them. 
Seeking  a  better  than  this,  they  had  known  it  a 
mockery.  Not  in  war,  not  in  wealth,  not  in  tyr- 
anny, was  there  any  happiness  to  be  found  for 
them  —  only  in  kindly  peace,  fruitful  and  free. 
The  wreath  was  to  be  of  wild  olive,  mark  you : — 
the  tree  that  grows  carelessly,  tufting  the  rocks 
with  no  vivid  bloom,  no  verdure  of  branch ;  only 
with  soft  snow  of  blossom,  and  scarcely  fulfilled 
fruit,  mixed  with  gray  leaf  and  thorn-set  stem ; 
no  fastening  of  diadem  for  you  but  with  such 
sharp  embroidery !  But  this,  such  as  it  is,  you 
may  win,  while  yet  you  live ;  type  of  gray  honor, 
and  sweet  rest.1  Free-heartedness,  and  gracious- 
ness,  and  undisturbed  trust,  and  requited  love, 

1  jueAiTOf(7<7pa,  atO\u>v  y'  tvfKtv, 

14  209 


INTRODUCTION 


and  the  sight  of  the  peace  of  others,  and  the  min- 
istry to  their  pain ;  these — and  the  blue  sky  above 
you,  and  the  sweet  waters  and  flowers  of  the  earth 
beneath,  and  mysteries  and  presences,  innumer- 
able, of  living  things  —  may  yet  be  here  your 
riches ;  untormenting  and  divine :  serviceable  for 
the  life  that  now  is ;  nor,  it  may  be,  without 
promise  of  that  which  is  to  come. 


210 


LECTURE  I 
WORK 


LECTURE 

I 
WORK 


Delivered  before  the  Workingmen's 
Institute,  at  Camberwell. 


M 


'Y  FRIENDS,— I  have  not  come 
among  you  to-night  to  endeavor 
to  give  you  an  entertaining  lec- 
ture; but  to  tell  you  a  few  plain  facts,  and 
ask  you  a  few  plain  questions.  I  have  seen 
and  known  too  much  of  the  struggle  for  life 
among  our  laboring  population,  to  feel  at 
ease,  under  any  circumstances,  in  inviting 
them  to  dwell  on  the  trivialities  of  my  own 
studies;  but,  much  more,  as  I  meet  to- 
night, for  the  first  time,  the  members  of  a 
working  Institute  established  in  the  dis- 
trict in  which  I  have  passed  the  greater 
part  of  my  life,  I  am  desirous  that  we 
should  at  once  understand  each  other,  on 
graver  matters.  I  would  fain  tell  you,  with 
what  feelings,  and  with  what  hope,  I  regard 
this  Institute,  as  one  of  many  such,  now 
happily  established  throughout  England, 
as  well  as  in  other  countries;  and  prepar- 
213 


THE  CROWN   OF  WILD  OLIVE 

ing  the  way  for  a  great  change  in  all  the 
circumstances  of  industrial  life;  but  of 
which  the  success  must  wholly  depend 
upon  our  clearly  understanding  the  condi- 
tions, and  above  all,  the  necessary  limits 
of  this  change.  No  teacher  can  truly  pro- 
mote the  cause  of  education,  until  he 
knows  the  mode  of  life  for  which  that  edu- 
cation is  to  prepare  his  pupil.  And  the 
fact  that  he  is  called  upon  to  address  you, 
nominally,  as  a  "Working  Class,"  must 
compel  him,  if  he  is  in  any  wise  earnest  or 
thoughtful,  to  inquire  in  the  outset,  on 
what  you  yourselves  suppose  this  class 
distinction  has  been  founded  in  the  past, 
and  must  be  founded  in  the  future.  The 
manner  of  the  amusement,  and  the  matter 
of  the  teaching,  which  any  of  us  can  offer 
you,  must  depend  wholly  on  our  first  under- 
standing from  you,  whether  you  think  the 
distinction  heretofore  drawn  between  work- 
ingmen  and  others,  is  truly  or  falsely 
founded.  Do  you  accept  it  as  it  stands? 
do  you  wish  it  to  be  modified?  or  do  you 
think  the  object  of  education  is  to  efface 
it,  and  enable  us  to  forget  it  forever? 

Let  me   make    myself   more  distinctly 
understood.    We  call  this— you  and  I— a 
"  Workingmen's "  Institute,  and  our  col- 
lege in  London,  a  "  Workingmen's  "  College. 
214 


WORK 

Now,  how  do  you  consider  that  these  several 
institutes  differ,  or  ought  to  differ,  from 
"idle  men's"  institutes,  and  "idle  men's" 
colleges?  Or  by  what  other  word  than 
"  idle  "  shall  I  distinguish  those  whom  the 
happiest  and  wisest  of  workingmen  do  not 
object  to  call  the  "Upper  Classes"?  Are 
there  necessarily  upper  classes?  necessarily 
lower?  How  much  should  those  always  be 
elevated,  how  much  these  always  depressed? 
And  I  pray  those  among  my  audience  who 
chance  to  occupy,  at  present,  the  higher 
position,  to  forgive  me  what  offense  there 
may  be  in  what  I  am  going  to  say.  It  is 
not  /  who  wish  to  say  it.  Bitter  voices  say 
it;  voices  of  battle  and  of  famine  through 
all  the  world,  which  must  be  heard  some 
day,  whoever  keeps  silence.  Neither,  as 
you  well  know,  is  it  to  you  specially  that  I 
say  it.  I  am  sure  that  most  now  present 
know  their  duties  of  kindness,  and  fulfil 
them,  better  perhaps  than  I  do  mine.  But 
I  speak  to  you  as  representing  your  whole 
class,  which  errs,  I  know,  chiefly  by 
thoughtlessness,  but  not  therefore  the  less 
terribly.  Wilful  error  is  limited  by  the 
will,  but  what  limit  is  there  to  that  of 
which  we  are  unconscious? 

Bear  with  me,  therefore,  while  I  turn  to 
these  workmen,  and  ask  them,  what  they 
215 


THE  CROWN   OF  WILD   OLIVE 

think  the  "  upper  classes "  are,  and  ought 
to  be,  in  relation  to  them.  Answer,  you 
workmen  who  are  here,  as  you  would 
among  yourselves,  frankly;  and  tell  me 
how  you  would  have  me  call  your  employ- 
ers. Am  I  to  call  them— would  you  think 
me  right  in  calling  them— the  idle  classes  ? 
I  think  you  would  feel  somewhat  uneasy, 
and  as  if  I  were  not  treating  my  subject 
honestly,  or  speaking  from  my  heart,  if  I 
proceeded  in  my  lecture  under  the  suppo- 
sition that  all  rich  people  were  idle.  You 
would  be  both  unjust  and  unwise  if  you  al- 
lowed me  to  say  that;— not  less  unjust  than 
the  rich  people  who  say  that  all  the  poor 
are  idle,  and  will  never  work  if  they  can 
help  it,  or  more  than  they  can  help. 

1  For  indeed  the  fact  is  that  there  are 
idle  poor,  and  idle  rich;  and  there  are  busy 
poor,  and  busy  rich.  Many  a  beggar  is  as 
lazy  as  if  he  had  ten  thousand  a  year;  and 
many  a  man  of  large  fortune  is  busier  than 
his  errand-boy,  and  never  would  think  of 
stopping  in  the  street  to  play  marbles.  So 
that,  in  a  large  view,  the  distinction  be- 
tween workers  and  idlers,  as  between 
knaves  and  honest  men,  runs  through  the 

1  Note  this  paragraph.  I  cannot  enough  wonder  at  the 
want  of  common  charity  which  blinds  so  many  people  to  the 
quite  simple  truth  to  which  it  refers. 

216 


WORK 

very  heart  and  innermost  nature  of  men  of 
all  ranks  and  in  all  positions.  There  is  a 
working  class— strong  and  happy— among 
both  rich  and  poor;  there  is  an  idle  class- 
weak,  wicked,  and  miserable— among  both 
rich  and  poor.  And  the  worst  of  the  mis- 
understandings arising  between  the  two 
orders  come  of  the  unlucky  fact  that  the 
wise  of  one  class  (how  little  wise  in  this!) 
habitually  contemplate  the  foolish  of  the 
other.  If  the  busy  rich  people  watched  and  re- 
buked the  idle  rich  people,  all  would  be  right 
among  them :  and  if  the  busy  poor  people 
watched  and  rebuked  the  idle  poor  people, 
all  would  be  right  among  them.  But  each 
look  for  the  faults  of  the  other.  A  hard- 
working man  of  property  is  particularly 
offended  by  an  idle  beggar;  and  an  orderly, 
but  poor,  workman  is  naturally  intolerant 
of  the  licentious  luxury  of  the  rich.  And 
what  is  severe  judgment  in  the  minds  of 
the  just  men  of  either  class,  becomes  fierce 
enmity  in  the  unjust— but  among  the  un- 
just only.  None  but  the  dissolute  among 
the  poor  look  upon  the  rich  as  their  natural 
enemies,  or  desire  to  pillage  their  houses 
and  divide  their  property.  None  but  the 
dissolute  among  the  rich  speak  in  oppro- 
brious terms  of  the  vices  and  follies  of  the 
poor. 

217 


THE  CROWN   OF   WILD   OLIVE 

There  is,  then,  no  worldly  distinction  be- 
tween idle  and  industrious  people;  and  I 
am  going  to-night  to  speak  only  of  the 
industrious.  The  idle  people  we  will  put 
out  of  our  thoughts  at  once— they  are  mere 
nuisances— what  ought  to  be  done  with 
them,  we  '11  talk  of  at  another  time.  But 
there  are  class  distinctions  among  the 
industrious  themselves;— tremendous  dis- 
tinctions, which  rise  and  fall  to  every 
degree  in  the  infinite  thermometer  of  hu- 
man pain  and  of  human  power,— distinc- 
tions of  high  and  low,  of  lost  and  won, 
to  the  whole  reach  of  man's  soul  and 
body. 

These  separations  we  will  study,  and  the 
laws  of  them,  among  energetic  men  only, 
who,  whether  they  work  or  whether  they 
play,  put  their  strength  into  the  work,  and 
their  strength  into  the  game;  being  in  the 
full  sense  of  the  word  "industrious,"  one 
way  or  another,— with  purpose,  or  without. 
And  these  distinctions  are  mainly  four: 

I.  Between  those  who  work,  and  those 
who  play. 

II.  Between     those   who    produce    the 
means  of  life,   and  those  who    consume 
them. 

III.  Between  those  who  work  with  the 
head,  and  those  who  work  with  the  hand. 

218 


WORK 

IV.  Between  those  who  work  wisely,  and 
those  who  work  foolishly. 

For  easier  memory,  let  us  say  we  are 
going  to  oppose,  in  our  examination,— 

I.  Work  to  play; 

II.  Production  to  consumption; 

III.  Head  to  hand;  and, 

IV.  Sense  to  nonsense. 

I.  First,  then,  of  the  distinction  between 
the  classes  who  work  and  the  classes  who 
play.  Of  course  we  must  agree  upon  a 
definition  of  these  terms,— work  and  play, 
before  going  farther.  Now,  roughly,  not 
with  vain  subtlety  of  definition,  but  for 
plain  use  of  the  words,  "play"  is  an  exer- 
tion of  body  or  mind,  made  to  please  our- 
selves, and  with  no  determined  end;  and 
work  is  a  thing  done  because  it  ought  to 
be  done,  and  with  a  determined  end.  You 
play,  as  you  call  it,  at  cricket,  for  instance. 
That  is  as  hard  work  as  anything  else;  but 
it  amuses  you,  and  it  has  no  result  but  the 
amusement.  If  it  were  done  as  an  ordered 
form  of  exercise,  for  health's  sake,  it 
would  become  work  directly.  So,  in  like 
manner,  whatever  we  do  to  please  our- 
selves, and  only  for  the  sake  of  the  plea- 
sure, not  for  an  ultimate  object,  is  "play," 
the  "pleasing  thing,"  not  the  useful  thing. 
Play  may  be  useful,  in  a  secondary  sense 
219 


THE  CROWN   OF  WILD   OLIVE 

(nothing  is  indeed  more  useful  or  neces- 
sary); but  the  use  of  it  depends  on  its 
being  spontaneous. 

Let  us,  then,  inquire  together  what  sort 
of  games  the  playing  class  in  England  spend 
their  lives  in  playing  at. 

The  first  of  all  English  games  is  making 
money.  That  is  an  all-absorbing  game; 
and  we  knock  each  other  down  oftener  in 
playing  at  that,  than  at  football,  or  any 
other  roughest  sport;  and  it  is  absolutely 
without  purpose;  no  one  who  engages 
heartily  in  that  game  ever  knows  why. 
Ask  a  great  money-maker  what  he  wants 
to  do  with  his  money,— he  never  knows. 
He  does  n't  make  it  to  do  anything  with  it. 
He  gets  it  only  that  he  may  get  it.  "  What 
will  you  make  of  what  you  have  got?  "  you 
ask.  "Well,  I  '11  get  more,"  he  says.  Just 
as,  at  cricket,  you  get  more  runs.  There  's 
no  use  in  the  runs,  but  to  get  more  of  them 
than  other  people  is  the  game.  And  there 's 
no  use  in  the  money,  but  to  have  more  of  it 
than  other  people  is  the  game.  So  all  that 
great  foul  city  of  London  there,— rattling, 
growling,  smoking,  stinking,— a  ghastly 
heap  of  fermenting  brickwork,  pouring  out 
poison  at  every  pore,— you  fancy  it  is  a 
city  of  work?  Not  a  street  of  it!  It  is  a 
great  city  of  play;  very  nasty  play,  and 
220 


WORK 

very  hard  play,  but  still  play.  It  is  only 
Lord's  cricket-ground  without  the  turf:— 
a  huge  billiard-table  without  the  cloth,  and 
with  pockets  as  deep  as  the  bottomless  pit; 
but  mainly  a  billiard-table,  after  all. 

Well,  the  first  great  English  game  is  this 
playing  at  counters.  It  differs  from  the 
rest  in  that  it  appears  always  to  be  produ- 
cing money,  while  every  other  game  is  ex- 
pensive. But  it  does  not  always  produce 
money.  There  's  a  great  difference  between 
"winning"  money  and  "making"  it:  a 
great  difference  between  getting  it  out 
of  another  man's  pocket  into  ours,  or  filling 
both. 

Our  next  great  English  games,  however, 
hunting  and  shooting,  are  costly  altogether; 
and  how  much  we  are  fined  for  them 
annually  in  land,  horses,  gamekeepers,  and 
game-laws,  and  the  resultant  demoraliza- 
tion of  ourselves,  our  children,  and  our 
retainers,  I  will  not  endeavor  to  count 
now;  but  note  only  that,  except  for  exer- 
cise, this  is  not  merely  a  useless  game,  but 
a  deadly  one,  to  all  connected  with  it.  For 
through  horse-racing  you  get  every  form 
of  what  the  higher  classes  everywhere  call 
"play,"  in  distinction  from  all  other  plays; 
that  is,  gambling;  and  through  game-pre- 
serving you  get  also  some  curious  laying 
221 


THE  CROWN   OF   WILD   OLIVE 

out  of  ground:  that  beautiful  arrangement 
of  dwelling-house  for  man  and  beast,  by 
which  we  have  grouse  and  blackcock— 
so  many  brace  to  the  acre,  and  men  and 
women— so  many  brace  to  the  garret. 
I  often  wonder  what  the  angelic  builders 
and  surveyors— the  angelic  builders  who 
build  the  "many  mansions"  up  above 
there;  and  the  angelic  surveyors  who  mea- 
sured that  four-square  city  with  their  mea- 
suring-reeds—I wonder  what  they  think,  or 
are  supposed  to  think,  of  the  laying  out  of 
ground  by  this  nation.1 

Then,  next  to  the  gentlemen's  game 
of  hunting,  we  must  put  the  ladies'  game 
of  dressing.  It  is  not  the  cheapest  of 
games.  And  I  wish  I  could  tell  you  what 
this  "play"  costs,  altogether,  in  England, 
France,  and  Russia  annually.  But  it  is  a 
pretty  game,  and  on  certain  terms  I  like  it; 
nay,  I  don't  see  it  played  quite  as  much  as 
I  would  fain  have  it.  You  ladies  like  to 
lead  the  fashion:— by  all  means  lead  it- 
lead  it  thoroughly— lead  it  far  enough. 
Dress  yourselves  nicely,  and  dress  everybody 
else  nicely.  Lead  the  fashions  for  the  poor 
first;  make  them  look  well,  and  you  your- 

1  The  subject  is  pursued  at  some  length  in  "  Fors  Clavigera  " 
for  March,  1873 ;  but  I  have  not  yet  properly  stated  the  oppo- 
site side  of  the  question,  nor  insisted  on  the  value  of  uncul- 
tivated land  to  the  national  health  of  body  and  mind. 

222 


WORK 

selves  will  look,  in  ways  of  which  you  have 
now  no  conception,  all  the  better.  The 
fashions  you  have  set  for  some  time  among 
your  peasantry  are  not  pretty  ones;  their 
doublets  are  too  irregularly  slashed,  or  as 
Chaucer  calls  it  "all  to-slittered,"  though 
not  "for  queintise,"  and  the  wind  blows  too 
frankly  through  them. 

Then  there  are  other  games,  wild  enough, 
as  I  could  show  you  if  I  had  time. 

There  's  playing  at  literature,  and  play- 
ing at  art;— very  different,  both,  from  work- 
ing at  literature,  or  working  at  art,  but 
I  've  no  time  to  speak  of  these.  I  pass  to 
the  greatest  of  all— the  play  of  plays,  the 
great  gentleman's  game,  which  ladies  like 
them  best  to  play  at,— the  game  of  War. 
It  is  entrancingly  pleasant  to  the  imagina- 
tion; we  dress  for  it,  however,  more  finely 
than  for  any  other  sport;  and  go  out  to  it, 
not  merely  in  scarlet,  as  to  hunt,  but  in 
scarlet  and  gold,  and  all  manner  of  fine 
colors;  of  course  we  could  fight  better  in 
gray,  and  without  feathers;  but  all  nations 
have  agreed  that  it  is  good  to  be  well 
dressed  at  this  play.  Then  the  bats  and 
balls  are  very  costly;  our  English  and 
French  bats,  with  the  balls  and  wickets, 
even  those  which  we  don't  make  any  use 
of,  costing,  I  suppose,  now  about  fifteen 
223 


THE   CROWN   OF   WILD   OLIVE 

millions  of  money  annually  to  each  nation; 
all  which  you  know  is  paid  for  by  hard 
laborer's  work  in  the  furrow  and  furnace. 
A  costly  game!— not  to  speak  of  its  conse- 
quences; I  will  say  at  present  nothing  of 
these.  The  mere  immediate  cost  of  all 
these  plays  is  what  I  want  you  to  consider; 
they  are  all  paid  for  in  deadly  work  some- 
where, as  many  of  us  know  too  well.  The 
jewel-cutter,  whose  sight  fails  over  the  dia- 
monds; the  weaver,  whose  arm  fails  over 
the  web;  the  iron-forger,  whose  breath 
fails  before  the  furnace— they  know  what 
work  is— they,  who  have  all  the  work,  and 
none  of  the  play,  except  a  kind  they  have 
named  for  themselves  down  in  the  black 
north  country,  where  "play"  means  being 
laid  up  by  sickness.  It  is  a  pretty  example 
for  philologists,  of  varying  dialect,  this 
change  in  the  sense  of  the  word  as  used  in 
the  black  country  of  Birmingham,  and  the 
red-and-black  country  of  Baden-Baden. 
Yes,  gentlemen,  and  gentlewomen,  of  Eng- 
land, who  think  "  one  moment  unamused  a 
misery  not  made  for  feeble  man,"  this  is 
what  you  have  brought  the  word  "play  "  to 
mean,  in  the  heart  of  merry  England!  You 
may  have  your  fluting  and  piping;  but 
there  are  sad  children  sitting  in  the  mar- 
ket-place, who  indeed  cannot  say  to  you, 
224 


WORK 

"  We  have  piped  unto  you,  and  ye  have  not 
danced":  but  eternally  shall  say  to  you, 
"  We  have  mourned  unto  you,  and  ye  have 
not  lamented." 

This,  then,  is  the  first  distinction  be- 
tween the  "upper  and  lower  "  classes.  And 
this  is  one  which  is  by  no  means  necessary; 
which  indeed  must,  in  process  of  good  time, 
be  by  all  honest  men's  consent  abolished. 
Men  will  be  taught  that  an  existence  of 
play,  sustained  by  the  blood  of  other  crea- 
tures, is  a  good  existence  for  gnats  and 
jellyfish;  but  not  for  men:  that  neither 
days,  nor  lives,  can  be  made  holy  or  noble 
by  doing  nothing  in  them:  that  the  best 
prayer  at  the  beginning  of  a  day  is  that  we 
may  not  lose  its  moments;  and  the  best 
grace  before  meat,  the  consciousness  that 
we  have  justly  earned  our  dinner.  And 
when  we  have  this  much  of  plain  Chris- 
tianity preached  to  us  again,  and  cease  to 
translate  the  strict  words,  "  Son,  go  work 
to-day  in  my  vineyard,"  into  the  dainty 
ones,  "Baby,  go  play  to-day  in  my  vine- 
yard," we  shall  all  be  workers  in  one  way 
or  another;  and  this  much  at  least  of  the 
distinction  between  "upper"  and  "lower" 
forgotten. 

II.  I  pass  then  to  our  second  distinc- 
tion; between  the  rich  and  poor,  between 
15  225 


THE  CROWN   OP  WILD   OLIVE 

Dives  and  Lazarus,— distinction  which  ex- 
ists more  sternly,  I  suppose,  in  this  day, 
than  ever  in  the  world,  Pagan  or  Christian, 
till  now.  Consider,  for  instance,  what  the 
general  tenor  of  such  a  paper  as  the  "  Morn- 
ing Post "  implies  of  delicate  luxury  among 
the  rich;  and  then  read  this  chance  extract 
from  it: 

"Yesterday  morning,  at  eight  o'clock,  a 
woman,  passing  a  dung-heap  in  the  stone- 
yard  near  the  recently  erected  almshouses 
in  Shadwell  Gap,  High  Street,  Shadwell, 
called  the  attention  of  a  Thames  police- 
constable  to  a  man  in  a  sitting  position  on 
the  dung-heap,  and  said  she  was  afraid  he 
was  dead.  Her  fears  proved  to  be  true. 
The  wretched  creature  appeared  to  have 
been  dead  several  hours.  He  had  perished 
of  cold  and  wet,  and  the  rain  had  been 
beating  down  on  him  all  night.  The  de- 
ceased was  a  bone-picker.  He  was  in  the 
lowest  stage  of  poverty,  poorly  clad,  and 
half  starved.  The  police  had  frequently 
driven  him  away  from  the  stone-yard,  be- 
tween sunset  and  sunrise,  and  told  him  to 
go  home.  He  selected  a  most  desolate  spot 
for  his  wretched  death.  A  penny  and  some 
bones  were  found  in  his  pockets.  The  de- 
ceased was  between  fifty  and  sixty  years  of 
age.  Inspector  Roberts,  of  the  K  division, 
226 


WORK 

has  given  directions  for  inquiries  to  be 
made  at  the  lodging-houses  respecting  the 
deceased,  to  ascertain  his  identity  if  possi- 
ble."— Morning  Post,  November  25, 1864. 

Compare  the  statement  of  the  finding 
bones  in  his  pocket  with  the  following, 
from  the  "Telegraph  "  of  January  16  of  this 
year: 

"Again  the  dietary  scale  for  adult  and 
juvenile  paupers  was  drawn  up  by  the  most 
conspicuous  political  economists  in  Eng- 
land. It  is  low  in  quantity,  but  it  is  suffi- 
cient to  support  nature:  yet,  within  ten 
years  of  the  passing  of  the  Poor  Law  Act, 
we  heard  of  the  Paupers  in  the  Andover 
Union  gnawing  the  scraps  of  putrid  flesh, 
and  sucking  the  marrow  from  the  bones  of 
horses  which  they  were  employed  to  crush." 

You  see  my  reason  for  thinking  that  our 
Lazarus  of  Christianity  has  some  advan- 
tage over  the  Jewish  one.  Jewish  Lazarus 
expected,  or,  at  least,  prayed,  to  be  fed 
with  crumbs  from  the  rich  man's  table; 
but  our  Lazarus  is  fed  with  crumbs  from 
the  dog's  table. 

Now  this  distinction  between  rich  and 
poor  rests  on  two  bases.  Within  its  proper 
limits,  on  a  basis  which  is  lawful  and  ever- 
lastingly necessary;  beyond  them,  on  a 
basis  unlawful,  and  everlastingly  corrupt- 
227 


THE  CROWN   OF   WILD   OLIVE 

ing  the  framework  of  society.  The  lawful 
basis  of  wealth  is  that  a  man  who  works 
should  be  paid  the  fair  value  of  his  work; 
and  that  if  he  does  not  choose  to  spend  it 
to-day,  he  should  have  free  leave  to  keep 
it,  and  spend  it  to-morrow.  Thus,  an  in- 
dustrious man  working  daily,  and  laying 
by  daily,  attains  at  last  the  possession  of 
an  accumulated  sum  of  wealth,  to  which 
he  has  absolute  right.  The  idle  person 
who  will  not  work,  and  the  wasteful  per- 
son who  lays  nothing  by,  at  the  end  of 
the  same  time  will  be  doubly  poor— 
poor  in  possession,  and  dissolute  in  moral 
habit;  and  he  will  then  naturally  covet 
the  money  which  the  other  has  saved. 
And  if  he  is  then  allowed  to  attack  the 
other,  and  rob  him  of  his  well-earned 
wealth,  there  is  no  more  any  motive  for 
saving,  or  any  reward  for  good  conduct; 
and  all  society  is  thereupon  dissolved,  or 
exists  only  in  systems  of  rapine.  There- 
fore the  first  necessity  of  social  life  is  the 
clearness  of  national  conscience  in  enfor- 
cing the  law— that  he  should  keep  who  has 

JUSTLY  EARNED. 

That  law,  I  say,  is  the  proper  basis  of 
distinction  between  rich  and  poor.  But 
there  is  also  a  false  basis  of  distinction; 
namely,  the  power  held  over  those  who  are 

228 


WORK 

earning  wealth  by  those  who  already  pos- 
sess it,  and  only  use  it  to  gain  more.  There 
will  be  always  a  number  of  men  who  would 
fain  set  themselves  to  the  accumulation  of 
wealth  as  the  sole  object  of  their  lives. 
Necessarily,  that  class  of  men  is  an  unedu- 
cated class,  inferior  in  intellect,  and,  more 
or  less,  cowardly.  It  is  physically  impos- 
sible for  a  well-educated,  intellectual,  or 
brave  man  to  make  money  the  chief  object 
of  his  thoughts;  just  as  it  is  for  him  to 
make  his  dinner  the  principal  object  of 
them.  All  healthy  people  like  their  din- 
ners, but  their  dinner  is  not  the  main  ob- 
ject of  their  lives.  So  all  healthily  minded 
people  like  making  money— ought  to  like 
it,  and  to  enjoy  the  sensation  of  winning 
it:  but  the  main  object  of  their  life  is  not 
money;  it  is  something  better  than  money. 
A  good  soldier,  for  instance,  mainly  wishes 
to  do  his  fighting  well.  He  is  glad  of  his 
pay— very  properly  so,  and  justly  grumbles 
when  you  keep  him  ten  years  without  it; 
still,  his  main  notion  of  life  is  to  win  bat- 
tles, not  to  be  paid  for  winning  them.  So 
of  clergymen.  They  like  pew-rents,  and 
baptismal  fees,  of  course;  but  yet,  if  they 
are  brave  and  well  educated,  the  pew-rent 
is  not  the  sole  object  of  their  lives,  and  the 
baptismal  fee  is  not  the  sole  purpose  of  the 
229 


THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE 

baptism;  the  clergyman's  object  is  essen- 
tially to  baptize  and  preach,  not  to  be  paid 
for  preaching.  So  of  doctors.  They  like 
fees  no  doubt,— ought  to  like  them;  yet  if 
they  are  brave  and  well  educated,  the  en- 
tire object  of  their  lives  is  not  fees.  They, 
on  the  whole,  desire  to  cure  the  sick;  and— 
if  they  are  good  doctors,  and  the  choice 
were  fairly  put  to  them— would  rather  cure 
their  patient,  and  lose  their  fee,  than  kill 
him,  and  get  it.  And  so  with  all  other 
brave  and  rightly  trained  men;  their  work 
is  first,  their  fee  second— very  important 
always,  but  still  second.  But  in  every  na- 
tion, as  I  said,  there  are  a  vast  class  who 
are  ill  educated,  cowardly,  and  more  or  less 
stupid.  And  with  these  people,  just  as  cer- 
tainly the  fee  is  first,  and  the  work  second, 
as  with  brave  people  the  work  is  first,  and 
the  fee  second.  And  this  is  no  small  dis- 
tinction. It  is  between  life  and  death  in  a 
man;  between  heaven  and  hell  for  him. 
You  cannot  serve  two  masters:— you  must 
serve  one  or  other.  If  your  work  is  first 
with  you,  and  your  fee  second,  work  is  your 
master,  and  the  lord  of  work,  who  is  God. 
But  if  your  fee  is  first  with  you,  and  your 
work  second,  fee  is  your  master,  and  the 
lord  of  fee,  who  is  the  Devil;  and  not  only 
the  Devil,  but  the  lowest  of  devils— the 
230 


WORK 

"least  erected  fiend  that  fell."  So  there 
you  have  it  in  brief  terms;  Work  first— 
you  are  God's  servants;  Fee  first— you  are 
the  Fiend's.  And  it  makes  a  difference, 
now  and  ever,  believe  me,  whether  you 
serve  Him  Who  has  on  His  vesture  and 
thigh  written,  "  King  of  Kings,"  and  whose 
service  is  perfect  freedom;  or  him  on  whose 
vesture  and  thigh  the  name  is  written, 
"Slave  of  Slaves,"  and  whose  service  is 
perfect  slavery. 

However,  in  every  nation  there  are,  and 
must  always  be,  a  certain  number  of  these 
Fiend's  servants,  who  have  it  principally 
for  the  object  of  their  lives  to  make  money. 
They  are  always,  as  I  said,  more  or  less 
stupid,  and  cannot  conceive  of  anything 
else  so  nice  as  money.  Stupidity  is  always 
the  basis  of  the  Judas  bargain.  We  do 
great  injustice  to  Iscariot,  in  thinking  him 
wicked  above  all  common  wickedness.  He 
was  only  a  common  money-lover,  and,  like 
all  money-lovers,  did  not  understand  Christ; 
—could  not  make  out  the  worth  of  Him,  or 
meaning  of  Him.  He  never  thought  He 
would  be  killed.  He  was  horror-struck 
when  he  found  that  Christ  would  be  killed; 
threw  his  money  away  instantly,  and  hanged 
himself.  How  many  of  our  present  money- 
seekers,  think  you,  would  have  the  grace 
231 


THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE 

to  hang  themselves,  whoever  was  killed? 
But  Judas  was  a  common,  selfish,  muddle- 
headed,  pilfering  fellow;  his  hand  always 
in  the  bag  of  the  poor,  not  caring  for  them. 
Helpless  to  understand  Christ,  he  yet  be- 
lieved in  Him,  much  more  than  most  of 
us  do;  had  seen  Him  do  miracles,  thought 
He  was  quite  strong  enough  to  shift  for 
Himself,  and  he,  Judas,  might  as  well  make 
his  own  little  by-perquisites  out  of  the 
affair.  Christ  would  come  out  of  it  well 
enough,  and  he  have  his  thirty  pieces. 
Now,  that  is  the  money-seeker's  idea,  all 
over  the  world.  <He  does  n't  hate  Christ, 
but  can't  understand  Him— does  n't  care 
for  Him— sees  no  good  in  that  benevolent 
business;  makes  his  own  little  job  out  of 
it  at  all  events,  come  what  will.  And  thus, 
out  of  every  mass  of  men,  you  have  a  cer- 
tain number  of  bagmen— your  "fee-first" 
men,  whose  main  object  is  to  make  money. 
And  they  do  make  it— make  it  in  all  sorts  of 
unfair  ways,  chiefly  by  the  weight  and  force 
of  money  itself,  or  what  is  called  the  power 
of  capital;  that  is  to  say,  the  power  which 
money,  once  obtained,  has  over  the  labor  of 
the  poor,  so  that  the  capitalist  can  take  all  its 
produce  to  himself,except  the  laborer's  food. 
That  is  the  modern  Judas's  way  of  "  carrying 
the  bag,"  and  "bearing  what  is  put  therein." 
232 


WORK 

Nay,  but  (it  is  asked)  how  is  that  an  un- 
fair advantage?  Has  not  the  man  who  has 
worked  for  the  money  a  right  to  use  it  as 
he  best  can?  No,  in  this  respect,  money  is 
now  exactly  what  mountain  promontories 
over  public  roads  were  in  old  times.  The 
barons  fought  for  them  fairly:— the  strong- 
est and  cunningest  got  them;  then  fortified 
them,  and  made  every  one  who  passed  be- 
low pay  toll.  Well,  capital  now  is  exactly 
what  crags  were  then.  Men  fight  fairly 
(we  will,  at  least,  grant  so  much,  though  it 
is  more  than  we  ought)  for  their  money; 
but,  once  having  got  it,  the  fortified  mil- 
lionaire can  make  everybody  who  passes 
below  pay  toll  to  his  million,  and  build 
another  tower  of  his  money  castle.  And  I 
can  tell  you,  the  poor  vagrants  by  the 
roadside  suffer  now  quite  as  much  from  the 
bag-baron,  as  ever  they  did  from  the  crag- 
baron.  Bags  and  crags  have  just  the  same 
result  on  rags.  I  have  not  time,  however, 
to-night,  to  show  you  in  how  many  ways 
the  power  of  capital  is  unjust;  but  remem- 
ber this  one  great  principle,— you  will  find 
it  unfailing,— that  whenever  money  is  the 
principal  object  of  life  with  either  man  or 
nation,  it  is  both  got  ill,  and  spent  ill;  and 
does  harm  both  in  the  getting  and  spend- 
ing; but  when  it  is  not  the  principal  ob- 
233 


THE   CROWN   OF  WILD   OLIVE 

ject,  it  and  all  other  things  will  be  well 
got,  and  well  spent.  And  here  is  the  test, 
with  every  man,  whether  money  is  the 
principal  object  with  him  or  not.  If  in 
mid-life  he  could  pause  and  say,  "Now  I 
have  enough  to  live  upon,  I  '11  live  upon  it; 
and  having  well  earned  it,  I  will  also  well 
spend  it,  and  go  out  of  the  world  poor,  as 
I  came  into  it,"  then  money  is  not  princi- 
pal with  him;  but  if,  having  enough  to  live 
upon  in  the  manner  befitting  his  charac- 
ter and  rank,  he  still  wants  to  make  more, 
and  to  die  rich,  then  money  is  the  princi- 
pal object  with  him,  and  it  becomes  a  curse 
to  himself,  and  generally  to  those  who  spend 
it  after  him.  For  you  know  it  must  be 
spent  some  day;  the  only  question  is 
whether  the  man  who  makes  it  shall  spend 
it,  or  some  one  else;  and  generally  it  is 
better  for  the  maker  to  spend  it,  for  he 
will  know  best  its  value  and  use.  And 
if  a  man  does  not  choose  thus  to  spend 
his  money,  he  must  either  hoard  it  or  lend 
it,  and  the  worst  thing  he  can  generally 
do  is  to  lend  it;  for  borrowers  are  nearly 
always  ill  spenders,  and  it  is  with  lent 
money  that  all  evil  is  mainly  done,  and  all 
unjust  war  protracted. 

For  observe  what  the  real  fact  is,  respect- 
ing loans  to  foreign  military  governments, 
234 


WORK 

and  how  strange  it  is.  If  your  little  boy 
came  to  you  to  ask  for  money  to  spend  in 
squibs  and  crackers,  you  would  think  twice 
before  you  gave  it  him:  and  you  would  have 
some  idea  that  it  was  wasted,  when  you 
saw  it  fly  off  in  fireworks,  even  though  he 
did  no  mischief  with  it.  But  the  Russian 
children,  and  Austrian  children,  come  to 
you,  borrowing  money,  not  to  spend  in  in- 
nocent squibs,  but  in  cartridges  and  bayo- 
nets .  to  attack  you  in  India  with,  and  to 
keep  down,  all  noble  life  in  Italy  with,  and 
to  murder  Polish  women  and  children  with; 
and  thqt'yQu  will  give  at  once,  because  they 
pay  .you  interest  for  it.  Now,  in  order  to 
pay  you  that  interest,  they  must  tax  every 
working  peasant  in  their  dominions:  and  on 
that  t^ork  you  live.  You  therefore  at  once 
rob  #he  Austrian  peasant,  assassinate  or 
banish  the  Polish  peasant,  and  you  live  on 
the  prod'uce  of  the  theft,  and  the  bribe  for 
the  assassinatio'n!  That  is  the  broad  fact 
—that  is  the  practical  meaning  of  your 
foreign  loans,  and  of  most  large  interest 
of  money;  and  then  you  quarrel  with 
Bishop  Colenso,  forsooth,  as  if  he  denied 
the  Bible,  and  you  believed  it!  though 
every  deliberate  act  of  your  lives  is  a  new 
defiance  of  its  primary  orders. 
III.  I  must  pass,  however,  now  to  our 
235 


THE  CROWN   OF  WILD   OLIVE 

third  condition  of  separation,  between  the 
men  who  work  with  the  hand,  and  those 
who  work  with  the  head. 

And  here  we  have  at  last  an  inevitable 
distinction.  There  must  be  work  done  by 
the  arms,  or  none  of  us  could  live.  There 
must  be  work  done  by  the  brains,  or  the 
life  we  get  would  not  be  worth  having. 
And  the  same  men  cannot  do  both.  There 
is  rough  work  to  be  done,  and  rough  men 
must  do  it;  there  is  gentle  work  to  be 
done,  and  gentlemen  must  do  it;  and  it  is 
physically  impossible  that  one  class  should 
do,  or  divide,  the  work  of  the  other.  And 
it  is  of  no  use  to  try  to  conceal  this  sorrow- 
ful fact  by  fine  words,  and  to  talk  to  the 
workman  about  the  honorableness  of  man- 
ual labor  and  the  dignity  of  humanity. 
Rough  work,  honorable  or  not,  takes  the 
life  out  of  us;  and  the  man  who  has  been 
heaving  clay  out  of  a  ditch  all  day,  or  driv- 
ing an  express-train  against  the  north  wind 
all  night,  or  holding  a  collier's  helm  in  a 
gale  on  a  lee  shore,  or  whirling  white-hot 
iron  at  a  furnace  mouth,  is  not  the  same 
man  at  the  end  of  his  day,  or  night,  as  one 
who  has  been  sitting  in  a  quiet  room,  with 
everything  comfortable  about  him,  reading 
books,  or  classing  butterflies,  or  painting 
pictures.1  If  it  is  any  comfort  to  you  to  be 

1  Compare  pages  266,  267. 

236 


WORK 

told  that  the  rough  work  is  the  more  hon- 
orable of  the  two,  I  should  be  sorry  to  take 
that  much  of  consolation  from  you;  and  in 
some  sense  I  need  not.  The  rough  work 
is  at  all  events  real,  honest,  and,  generally 
though  not  always,  useful;  while  the  fine 
work  is,  a  great  deal  of  it,  foolish  and  false, 
as  well  as  fine,  and  therefore  dishonorable; 
but  when  both  kinds  are  equally  well  and 
worthily  done  the  head's  is  the  noble  work, 
and  the  hand's  the  ignoble.  Therefore,  of 
all  hand-work  whatsoever,  necessary  for 
the  maintenance  of  life,  those  old  words, 
"  In  the  sweat  of  thy  face  thou  shalt  eat 
bread,"  indicate  that  the  inherent  nature 
of  it  is  one  of  calamity;  and  that  the 
ground,  cursed  for  our  sake,  casts  also  some 
shadow  of  degradation  into  our  contest  with 
its  thorn  and  its  thistle:  so  that  all  nations 
have  held  their  days  honorable,  or  "holy," 
and  constituted  them  "holydays,"  or  "holi- 
days," by  making  them  days  of  rest;  and 
the  promise  which,  among  all  our  distant 
hopes,  seems  to  cast  the  chief  brightness 
over  death,  is  that  blessing  of  the  dead 
who  die  in  the  Lord,  that  "  they  rest  from 
their  labors,  and  their  works  do  follow 
them." 

And    thus  the  perpetual   question   and 
contest  must  arise,  who  is  to  do  this  rough 
work?  and  how  is  the  worker  of  it  to  be 
237 


THE  CROWN  OP  WILD  OLIVE 

comforted,  redeemed,  and  rewarded?  and 
what  kind  of  play  should  he  have,  and 
what  rest,  in  this  world,  sometimes,  as  well 
as  in  the  next?  Well,  my  good,  laborious 
friends,  these  questions  will  take  a  little 
time  to  answer  yet.  They  must  be  an- 
swered: all  good  men  are  occupied  with 
them,  and  all  honest  thinkers.  There  's 
grand  head-work  doing  about  them;  but 
much  must  be  discovered,  and  much  at- 
tempted in  vain,  before  anything  decisive 
can  be  told  you.  Only  note  these  few  par- 
ticulars, which  are  already  sure. 

As  to  the  distribution  of  the  hard  work. 
None  of  us,  or  very  few  of  us,  do  either 
hard  or  soft  work  because  we  think  we 
ought;  but  because  we  have  chanced  to  fall 
into  the  way  of  it,  and  cannot  help  our- 
selves. Now,  nobody  does  anything  well 
that  they  cannot  help  doing:  work  is  only 
done  well  when  it  is  done  with  a  will;  and 
no  man  has  a  thoroughly  sound  will  unless 
he  knows  he  is  doing  what  he  should,  and 
is  in  his  place.  And,  depend  upon  it,  all 
work  must  be  done  at  last,  not  in  a  dis- 
orderly, scrambling,  doggish  way,  but  in 
an  ordered,  soldierly,  human  way— a  law- 
ful or  "  loyal  "  way.  Men  are  enlisted  for 
the  labor  that  kills— the  labor  of  war:  they 
are  counted,  trained,  fed,  dressed,  and 
238 


WORK 

praised  for  that.  Let  them  be  enlisted  also 
for  the  labor  that  feeds:  let  them  be 
counted,  trained,  fed,  dressed,  praised  for 
that.  Teach  the  plow  exercise  as  carefully 
as  you  do  the  sword  exercise,  and  let  the 
officers  of  troops  of  life  be  held  as  much 
gentlemen  as  the  officers  of  troops  of 
death;  and  all  is  done:  but  neither  this,  nor 
any  other  right  thing,  can  be  accomplished 
—you  can't  even  see  your  way  to  it— un- 
less, first  of  all,  both  servant  and  master 
are  resolved  that,  come  what  will  of  it, 
they  will  do  each  other  justice. 

People  are  perpetually  squabbling  about 
what  will  be  best  to  do,  or  easiest  to  do,  or 
advisablest  to  do,  or  profitablest  to  do; 
but  they  never,  so  far  as  I  hear  them  talk, 
ever  ask  what  it  is  just  to  do.  And  it  is 
the  law  of  heaven  that  you  shall  not  be 
able  to  judge  what  is  wise  or  easy,  unless 
you  are  first  resolved  to  judge  what  is  just, 
and  to  do  it.  That  is  the  one  thing  con- 
stantly reiterated  by  our  Master— the  order 
of  all  others  that  is  given  oftenest— "Do 
justice  and  judgment."  That 's  your  Bible 
order;  that  's  the  "Service  of  God,"— not 
praying  nor  psalm-singing.  You  are  told, 
indeed,  to  sing  psalms  when  you  are  merry, 
and  to  pray  when  you  need  anything;  and, 
by  the  perverseness  of  the  evil  Spirit  in  us, 
239 


THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE 

we  get  to  think  that  praying  and  psalm- 
singing  are  "  service."  If  a  child  finds  itself 
in  want  of  anything,  it  runs  in  and  asks  its 
father  for  it— does  it  call  that  doing  its 
father  a  service?  If  it  begs  for  a  toy  or  a 
piece  of  cake— does  it  call  that  serving  its 
father?  That,  with  God,  is  prayer,  and  He 
likes  to  hear  it:  He  likes  you  to  ask  Him 
for  cake  when  you  want  it;  but  He  does  n't 
call  that  "serving  Him."  Begging  is  not 
serving:  God  likes  mere  beggars  as  little 
as  you  do— He  likes  honest  servants,— not 
beggars.  So  when  a  child  loves  its  father 
very  much,  and  is  very  happy,  it  may  sing 
little  songs  about  him;  but  it  does  n't  call 
that  serving  its  father;  neither  is  singing 
songs  about  God,  serving  God.  It  is  enjoy- 
ing ourselves,  if  it 's  anything,  most  prob- 
ably it  is  nothing;  but  if  it 's  anything  it  is 
serving  ourselves,  not  God.  And  yet  we  are 
impudent  enough  to  call  our  beggings  and 
chantings  "Divine  service":  we  say,  "Di- 
vine service  will  be  '  performed ' "  (that  's 
our  word— the  form  of  it  gone  through) 
"at  so-and-so  o'clock."  Alas;  unless  we 
perform  Divine  service  in  every  willing  act 
of  life,  we  never  perform  it  at  all.  The  one 
Divine  work— the  one  ordered  sacrifice— is 
to  do  justice;  and  it  is  the  last  we  are  ever 
inclined  to  do.  Anything  rather  than  that! 
240 


WORK 

As  much  charity  as  you  choose,  but  no 
justice.  "Nay,"  you  will  say,  "charity  is 
greater  than  justice."  Yes,  it  is  greater; 
it  is  the  summit  of  justice— it  is  the  temple 
of  which  justice  is  the  foundation.  But 
you  can't  have  the  top  without  the  bottom; 
you  cannot  build  upon  charity.  You  must 
build  upon  justice,  for  this  main  reason, 
that  you  have  not,  at  first,  charity  to  build 
with.  It  is  the  last  reward  of  good  work. 
Do  justice  to  your  brother  (you  can  do  that 
whether  you  love  him  or  not),  and  you  will 
come  to  love  him.  But  do  injustice  to 
him,  because  you  don't  love  him;  and  you 
will  come  to  hate  him. 

It  is  all  very  fine  to  think  you  can  build 
upon  charity  to  begin  with;  but  you  will 
find  all  you  have  got  to  begin  with  begins 
at  home,  and  is  essentially  love  of  your- 
self. You  well-to-do  people,  for  instance, 
who  are  here  to-night,  will  go  to  "  Divine 
service"  next  Sunday,  all  nice  and  tidy; 
and  your  little  children  will  have  their 
tight  little  Sunday  boots  on,  and  lovely 
little  Sunday  feathers  in  their  hats;  and 
you  '11  think,  complacently  and  piously, 
how  lovely  they  look  going  to  church  in 
their  best!  So  they  do:  and  you  love  them 
heartily,  and  you  like  sticking  feathers  in 
their  hats.  That  's  all  right:  that  is 
16  241 


THE  CROWN  OP  WILD  OLIVE 

charity;  but  it  is  charity  beginning  at 
home.  Then  you  will  come  to  the  poor 
little  crossing-sweeper,  got  up  also— it  in 
its  Sunday  dress,— the  dirtiest  rags  it  has, 
—that  it  may  beg  the  better:  you  will  give 
it  a  penny,  and  think  how  good  you  are, 
and  how  good  God  is  to  prefer  your  child 
to  the  crossing-sweeper,  and  bestow  on  it 
a  divine  hat,  feather,  and  boots,  and  the 
pleasure  of  giving  pence,  instead  of  beg- 
ging for  them.  That 's  charity  going  abroad. 
But  what  does  Justice  say,  walking  and 
watching  near  us?  Christian  Justice  has 
been  strangely  mute  and  seemingly  blind; 
and,  if  not  blind,  decrepit,  this  many  a 
day:  she  keeps  her  accounts  still,  however 
—quite  steadily— doing  them  at  nights, 
carefully,  with  her  bandage  off,  and  through 
acutest  spectacles  (the  only  modern  scien- 
tific invention  she  cares  about).  You  must 
put  'your  ear  down  ever  so  close  to  her 
lips,  to  hear  her  speak;  and  then  you  will 
start  at  what  she  first  whispers,  for  it  will 
certainly  be,  "Why  should  n't  that  little 
crossing-sweeper  have  a  feather  on  its 
head,  as  well  as  your  own  child?"  Then 
you  may  ask  Justice,  in  an  amazed  man- 
ner, "  How  she  can  possibly  be  so  foolish  as 
to  think  children  could  sweep  crossings 
with  feathers  on  their  heads?"  Then  you 
242 


WORK 

stoop  again,  and  Justice  says— still  in  her 
dull,  stupid  way— "Then,  why  don't  you, 
every  other  Sunday,  leave  your  child  to 
sweep  the  crossing,  and  take  the  little 
sweeper  to  church  in  a  hat  and  feather?  " 
Mercy  on  us  (you  think),  what  will  she  say 
next!  And  you  answer,  of  course,  that 
"you  don't,  because  everybody  ought  to 
remain  content  in  the  position  in  which 
Providence  has  placed  them."  Ah,  my 
friends,  that 's  the  gist  of  the  whole  ques- 
tion. Did  Providence  put  them  in  that  po- 
sition, or  did  you  ?  You  knock  a  man  into 
a  ditch,  and  then  you  tell  him  to  remain 
content  in  the  "position  in  which  Provi- 
dence has  placed  him."  That  's  modern 
Christianity.  You  say—"  We  did  not  knock 
him  into  the  ditch."  We  shall  never  know 
what  you  have  done,  or  left  undone,  until 
the  question  with  us,  every  morning,  is, 
not  how  to  do  the  gainful  thing,  but  how 
to  do  the  just  thing,  during  the  day;  nor 
until  we  are  at  least  so  far  on  the  way  to 
being  Christian,  as  to  acknowledge  that 
maxim  of  the  poor  half-way  Mohammedan, 
"One  hour  in  the  execution  of  justice  is 
worth  seventy  years  of  prayer." 

Supposing,  then,  we  have  it  determined 
with  appropriate  justice,  who  is  to  do  the 
hand-work,  the  next   questions  must  be 
243 


THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE 

how  the  hand-workers  are  to  be  paid,  and 
how  they  are  to  be  refreshed,  and  what  play 
they  are  to  have.  Now,  the  possible  quan- 
tity of  play  depends  on  the  possible  quan- 
tity of  pay;  and  the  quantity  of  pay  is  not 
a  matter  for  consideration  to  hand-workers 
only,  but  to  all  workers.  Generally,  good, 
useful  work,  whether  of  the  hand  or  head,  is 
either  ill-paid,  or  not  paid  at  all.  I  don't  say 
it  should  be  so,  but  it  always  is  so.  People, 
as  a  rule,  only  pay  for  being  amused  or  being 
cheated,  not  for  being  served.  Five  thou- 
sand a  year  to  your  talker,  and  a  shilling  a 
day  to  your  fighter,  digger,  and  thinker,  is 
the  rule.  None  of  the  best  head-work  in 
art,  literature,  or  science,  is  ever  paid  for. 
How  much  do  you  think  Homer  got  for  his 
"Iliad"?  or  Dante  for  his  "Paradise"? 
only  bitter  bread  and  salt,  and  going  up 
and  down  other  people's  stairs.  In  science, 
the  man  who  discovered  the  telescope,  and 
first  saw  heaven,  was  paid  with  a  dungeon; 
the  man  who  invented  the  microscope,  and 
first  saw  earth,  died  of  starvation,  driven 
from  his  home.  It  is  indeed  very  clear 
that  God  means  all  thoroughly  good  work 
and  talk  to  be  done  for  nothing.  Baruch 
the  scribe  did  not  get  a  penny  a  line  for 
writing  Jeremiah's  second  roll  for  him,  I 
fancy;  and  St.  Stephen  did  not  get  bishop's 
244 


WORK 

pay  for  that  long  sermon  of  his  to  the 
Pharisees;  nothing  but  stones.  For  indeed 
that  is  the  world-father's  proper  payment. 
So  surely  as  any  of  the  world's  children 
work  for  the  world's  good,  honestly,  with 
head  and  heart;  and  come  to  it,  saying, 
"Give  us  a  little  bread;  just  to  keep  the  life 
in  us,"  the  world-father  answers  them, 
"No,  my  children,  not  bread;  a  stone,  if 
you  like,  or  as  many  as  you  need,  to  keep 
you  quiet,  and  tell  to  future  ages,  how  un- 
pleasant you  made  yourself  to  the  one  you 
lived  in." 

But  the  hand-workers  are  not  so  ill  off 
as  all  this  comes  to.  The  worst  that  can 
happen  to  you  is  to  break  stones;  not  be 
broken  by  them.  And  for  you  there  will 
come  a  time  for  better  payment;  some  day, 
assuredly,  we  shall  pay  people  not  quite  so 
much  for  talking  in  Parliament  and  doing 
nothing,  as  for  holding  their  tongues  out 
of  it,  and  doing  something;  we  shall  pay 
our  plowman  a  little  more,  and  our  lawyer 
a  little  less,  and  so  on:  but,  at  least,  we 
may  even  now  take  care  that  whatever 
work  is  done  shall  be  fully  paid  for;  and  the 
man  who  does  it,  paid  for  it,  not  somebody 
else;  and  that  it  shall  be  done  in  an  orderly, 
soldierly,  well-guided,  wholesome  way,  un- 
der good  captains  and  lieutenants  of  labor; 
245 


THE  CROWN   OP  WILD  OLIVE 

and  that  it  shall  have  its  appointed  times 
of  rest,  and  enough  of  them;  and  that,  in 
those  times,  the  play  shall  be  wholesome 
play,  not  in  theatrical  gardens,  with  tin 
flowers  and  gas  sunshine,  and  girls  dancing 
because  of  their  misery;  but  in  true  gar- 
dens, with  real  flowers,  and  real  sunshine, 
and  children  dancing  because  of  their  glad- 
ness; so  that  truly  the  streets  shall  be  full 
(the  "streets,"  mind  you,  not  the  gutters) 
of  children,  playing  in  the  midst  thereof. 
We  may  take  care  that  workingmen  shall 
have  at  least  as  good  books  to  read  as 
anybody  else,  when  they  've  time  to  read 
them;  and  as  comfortable  firesides  to  sit 
at  as  anybody  else,  when  they  've  time  to 
sit  at  them.  This,  I  think,  can  be  man- 
aged for  you,  my  laborious  friends,  in  the 
good  time. 

IV.  I  must  go  on,  however,  to  our  last 
head,  concerning  ourselves  all,  as  workers. 
What  is  wise  work,  and  what  is  foolish 
work?  What  the  difference  between  sense 
and  nonsense,  in  daily  occupation? 

There  are  three  tests  of  wise  work:— 
that  it  must  be  honest,  useful,  and  cheer- 
ful. 

I.  It  is  HONEST.  I  hardly  know  anything 
more  strange  than  that  you  recognize  hon- 
esty in  play,  and  you  do  not  in  work.  In 
246 


WORK 

your  lightest  games,  you  have  always  some 
one  to  see  what  you  call  "fair-play."  In 
boxing,  you  must  hit  fair;  in  racing,  start 
fair.  Your  English  watchword  is  "fair- 
play"  your  English  hatred,  foul-play.  Did 
it  never  strike  you  that  you  wanted  an- 
other watchword  also,  "  f air-wor fc,"  and 
another  and  bitterer  hatred,— "foul- work"! 
Your  prize-fighter  has  some  honor  in  him 
yet:  and  so  have  the  men  in  the  ring  round 
him:  they  will  judge  him  to  lose  the  match, 
by  foul  hitting.  But  your  prize-merchant 
gains  his  match  by  foul  selling,  and  no  one 
cries  out  against  that!  You  drive  a  gam- 
bler out  of  the  gambling-room  who  loads 
dice,  but  you  leave  a  tradesman  in  flourish- 
ing business  who  loads  scales.  For  ob- 
serve, all  dishonest  dealing  is  loading  scales. 
What  difference  does  it  make  whether  I  get 
short  weight,  adulterate  substance,  or  dis- 
honest fabric— unless  that  flaw  in  the  sub- 
stance or  fabric  is  the  worse  evil  of  the  two? 
Give  me  short  measure  of  food,  and  I  only 
lose  by  you;  but  give  me  adulterate  food, 
and  I  die  by  you. 

Here,  then,  is  your  chief  duty,  you  work- 
men and  tradesmen,— to  be  true  to  your- 
selves and  to  us  who  would  help  you.  We 
can  do  nothing  for  you,  nor  you  for  your- 
selves, without  honesty.  Get  that,  you  get 
247 


THE  CROWN   OF  WILD  OLIVE 

all;  without  that,  your  suffrages,  your  re- 
forms, your  free-trade  measures,  your  in- 
stitutions of  science,  are  all  in  vain.  It 
is  useless  to  put  your  heads  together,  if 
you  can't  put  your  hearts  together.  Shoul- 
der to  shoulder,  right  hand  to  right  hand, 
among  yourselves,  and  no  wrong  hand  to 
anybody  else,  and  you  '11  win  the  world 
yet. 

II.  Then,  secondly,  wise  work  is  USEFUL. 
No  man  minds,  or  ought  to  mind,  its  being 
hard,  if  only  it  comes  to  something;  but 
when  it  is  hard,  and  comes  to  nothing; 
when  all  our  bees'  business  turns  to  spi- 
der's; and  for  honeycomb  we  have  only 
resultant  cobweb,  blown  away  by  the  next 
breeze,— that  is  the  cruel  thing  for  the 
worker.  Yet  do  we  ever  ask  ourselves, 
personally,  or  even  nationally,  whether  our 
work  is  coming  to  anything  or  not?  We 
don't  care  to  keep  what  has  been  nobly 
done;  still  less  do  we  care  to  do  nobly  what 
others  would  keep;  and,  least  of  all,  to 
make  the  work  itself  useful,  instead  of 
deadly,  to  the  doer,  so  as  to  exert  his  life 
indeed,  but  not  to  waste  it.  Of  all  wastes, 
the  greatest  waste  that  you  can  commit  is 
the  waste  of  labor.  If  you  went  down  in  the 
morning  into  your  dairy,  and  found  that 
your  youngest  child  had  got  down  before 
248 


WORK 

you;  and  that  he  and  the  cat  were  at  play 
together,  and  that  he  had  poured  Out  all 
the  cream  on  the  floor  for  the  cat  to 
lap  up,  you  would  scold  the  child,  and  be 
sorry  the  cream  was  wasted.  But  if,  in- 
stead of  wooden  bowls  with  milk  in  them, 
there  are  golden  bowls  with  human  life  in 
them,  and  instead  of  the  cat  to  play  with, 
—the  devil  to  play  with:  and  you  your- 
self the  player;  and  instead  of  leaving  that 
golden  bowl  to  be  broken  by  God  at  the 
fountain,  you  break  it  in  the  dust  your- 
self, and  pour  the  human  life  out  on  the 
ground  for  the  fiend  to  lick  up— that  is  no 
waste! 

What!  you  perhaps  think,  "to  waste  the 
labor  of  men  is  not  to  kill  them."  Is  it 
not?  I  should  like  to  know  how  you  could 
kill  them  more  utterly,— kill  them  with 
second  deaths,  seventh  deaths,  hundred- 
fold deaths?  It  is  the  slightest  way  of 
killing  to  stop  a  man's  breath.  Nay,  the 
hunger,  and  the  cold,  and  the  whistling 
bullets— our  love  messengers  between  na- 
tion and  nation— have  brought  pleasant 
messages  to  many  a  man  before  now:  or- 
ders of  sweet  release,  and  leave  at  last  to 
go  where  he  will  be  most  welcome  and  most 
happy.  At  the  worst  you  do  but  shorten 
his  life,  you  do  not  corrupt  his  life.  But  if 
249 


THE  CROWN   OP  WILD  OLIVE 

you  put  him  to  base  labor,  if  you  bind  his 
thoughts,  if  you  blind  his  eyes,  if  you  blunt 
his  hopes,  if  you  steal  his  joys,  if  you  stunt 
his  body,  and  blast  his  soul,  and  at  last 
leave  him  not  so  much  as  strength  to  reap 
the  poor  fruit  of  his  degradation,  but 
gather  that  for  yourself,  and  dismiss  him 
to  the  grave,  when  you  have  done  with 
him,  having,  so  far  as  in  you  lay,  made  the 
walls  of  that  grave  everlasting:  (though, 
indeed,  I  fancy  the  goodly  bricks  of  some 
of  our  family  vaults  will  hold  closer  in  the 
resurrection  day  than  the  sod  over  the  la- 
borer's head),  this  you  think  is  no  waste, 
and  no  sin! 

III.  Then,  lastly,  wise  work  is  CHEERFUL, 
as  a  child's  work  is.  And  now  I  want  you 
to  take  one  thought  home  with  you,  and 
let  it  stay  with  you. 

Everybody  in  this  room  has  been  taught 
to  pray  daily,  "  Thy  kingdom  come."  Now, 
if  we  hear  a  man  swear  in  the  streets,  we 
think  it  very  wrong,  and  say  he  "takes 
God's  name  in  vain."  But  there 's  a  twenty 
times  worse  way  of  taking  His  name  in 
vain  than  that.  It  is  to  ask  God  for  what 
we  don't  want.  He  does  n't  like  that  sort 
of  prayer.  If  you  don't  want  a  thing,  don't 
ask  for  it:  such  asking  is  the  worst  mock- 
ery of  your  King  you  can  insult  Him  with; 
250 


WORK 

the  soldiers  striking  Him  on  the  head  with 
the  reed  was  nothing  to  that.  If  you  do 
not  wish  for  His  kingdom,  don't  pray  for 
it.  But  if  you  do,  you  must  do  more  than 
pray  for  it;  you  must  work  for  it.  And,  to 
work  for  it,  you  must  know  what  it  is;  we 
have  all  prayed  for  it  many  a  day  without 
thinking.  Observe,  it  is  a  kingdom  that  is 
to  come  to  us;  we  are  not  to  go  to  it.  Also, 
it  is  not  to  be  a  kingdom  of  the  dead,  but 
of  the  living.  Also,  it  is  not  to  come  all 
at  once,  but  quietly;  nobody  knows  how. 
"The  kingdom  of  God  cometh  not  with  ob- 
servation." Also,  it  is  not  to  come  outside 
of  us,  but  in  our  hearts:  "the  kingdom  of 
God  is  within  you."  And,  being  within  us, 
it  is  not  a  thing  to  be  seen,  but  to  be  felt; 
and  though  it  brings  all  substance  of  good 
with  it,  it  does  not  consist  in  that:  "the 
kingdom  of  God  is  not  meat  and  drink,  but 
righteousness,  peace,  and  joy  in  the  Holy 
Ghost";  joy,  that  is  to  say,  in  the  holy, 
healthful,  and  helpful  Spirit.  Now,  if  we 
want  to  work  for  this  kingdom,  and  to 
bring  it,  and  enter  into  it,  there  's  one  cu- 
rious condition  to  be  first  accepted.  You 
must  enter  it  as  children,  or  not  at  all: 
"Whosoever  will  not  receive  it  as  a  little 
child  shall  not  enter  therein."  And  again, 
"Suffer  little  children  to  come  unto  me, 
251 


THE  CROWN   OF  WILD   OLIVE 

and  forbid  them  not,  for  of  such  is  the  king- 
dom of  heaven." l 

Of  such,  observe.  Not  of  children  them- 
selves, but  of  such  as  children.  I  believe 
most  mothers  who  read  that  text  think 
that  all  heaven  or  the  earth— when  it  gets 
to  be  like  heaven— is  to  be  full  of  babies. 
But  that 's  not  so.  "Length  of  days  and 
long  life  and  peace,"  that  is  the  blessing,— 
not  to  die,  still  less  to  live,  in  babyhood. 
It  is  the  character  of  children  we  want,  and 
must  gain  at  our  peril;  let  us  see,  briefly, 
in  what  it  consists. 

The  first  character  of  right  childhood  is 
that  it  is  Modest.  A  well-bred  child  does 
not  think  it  can  teach  its  parents,  or  that 
it  knows  everything.  It  may  think  its 
father  and  mother  know  everything— per- 
haps that  all  grown-up  people  know  every- 
thing; very  certainly  it  is  sure  that  it  does 
not.  And  it  is  always  asking  questions, 
and  wanting  to  know  more.  Well,  that  is 
the  first  character  of  a  good  and  wise  man 
at  his  work.  To  know  that  he  knows  very 
little;— to  perceive  that  there  are  many 
above  him  wiser  than  he;  and  to  be  always 
asking  questions,  wanting  to  learn,  not  to 

1  [I  have  referred  oftener  to  the  words  of  the  English  Bible 
in  this  lecture  than  in  any  other  of  my  addresses,  because  I 
was  here  speaking  to  an  audience  which  professed  to  accept 
its  authority  implicitly.] 

252 


WORK 

teach.  No  one  ever  teaches  well  who  wants 
to  teach,  or  governs  well  who  wants  to  gov- 
ern; it  is  an  old  saying  (Plato's,  but  I  know 
not  if  his,  first)  and  as  wise  as  old. 

Then,  the  second  character  of  right  child- 
hood is  to  be  Faithful.  Perceiving  that  its 
father  knows  best  what  is  good  for  it,  and 
having  found  always,  when  it  has  tried  its 
own  way  against  his,  that  he  was  right  and 
it  was  wrong,  a  noble  child  trusts  him  at 
last  wholly,  gives  him  its  hand,  and  will 
walk  blindfold  with  him,  if  he  bids  it.  And 
that  is  the  true  character  of  all  good  men 
also,  as  obedient  workers,  or  soldiers  under 
captains.  They  must  trust  their  captains; 
—they  are  bound  for  their  lives  to  choose 
none  but  those  whom  they  can  trust.  Then, 
they  are  not  always  to  be  thinking  that 
what  seems  strange  to  them,  or  wrong  in 
what  they  are  desired  to  do,  is  strange  or 
wrong.  They  know  their  captain:  where  he 
leads  they  must  follow,— what  he  bids,  they 
must  do;  and  without  this  trust  and  faith, 
without  this  captainship  and  soldiership, 
no  great  deed,  no  great  salvation,  is  pos- 
sible to  man. 

Then,  the  third  character  of  right  child- 
hood is  to  be  Loving.  Give  a  little  love  to 
a  child,  and  you  get  a  great  deal  back.  It 
loves  everything  near  it,  when  it  is  a  right 
253 


THE  CROWN   OF   WILD   OLIVE 

kind  of  child;  would  hurt  nothing,  would 
give  the  best  it  has  away  always,  if  you 
need  it;  does  not  lay  plans  for  getting 
everything  in  the  house  for  itself:  and, 
above  all,  delights  in  helping  people;  you 
cannot  please  it  so  much  as  by  giving  it  a 
chance  of  being  useful,  in  ever  so  humble 
a  way. 

And  because  of  all  these  characters, 
lastly,  it  is  Cheerful.  Putting  its  trust  in 
its  father,  it  is  careful  for  nothing— being 
full  of  love  to  every  creature,  it  is  happy 
always,  whether  in  its  play  or  its  duty. 
Well,  that 's  the  great  worker's  character 
also.  Taking  no  thought  for  the  morrow; 
taking  thought  only  for  the  duty  of  the 
day;  trusting  somebody  else  to  take  care 
of  to-morrow;  knowing  indeed  what  labor 
is,  but  not  what  sorrow  is;  and  always 
ready  for  play— beautiful  play.  For  lovely 
human  play  is  like  the  play  of  the  Sun. 
There  's  a  worker  for  you.  He,  steady  to 
his  time,  is  set  as  a  strong  man  to  run  his 
course,  but  also  he  rejoiceth  as  a  strong 
man  to  run  his  course.  See  how  he  plays 
in  the  morning,  with  the  mists  below,  and 
the  clouds  above,  with  a  ray  here,  and  a 
flash  there,  and  a  shower  of  jewels  every- 
where;—that  's  the  Sun's  play;  and  great 
human  play  is  like  his— all  various— all 
254 


WORK 

full  of  light  and  life,  and  tender,  as  the 
dew  of  the  morning. 

So  then,  you  have  the  child's  character 
in  these  four  things— Humility,  Faith, 
Charity,  and  Cheerfulness.  That  's  what 
you  have  got  to  he  converted  to.  "  Except 
ye  be  converted  and  become  as  little  chil- 
dren."—You  hear  much  of  conversion  now- 
adays: but  people  always  seem  to  think 
they  have  got  to  be  made  wretched  by  con- 
version,—to  be  converted  to  long  faces. 
No,  friends,  you  have  got  to  be  converted 
to  short  ones;  you  have  to  repent  into 
childhood,  to  repent  into  delight,  and  de- 
lightsomeness.  You  can't  go  into  a  con- 
venticle but  you  '11  hear  plenty  of  talk  of 
backsliding.  Backsliding,  indeed!  I  can 
tell  you,  on  the  ways  most  of  us  go,  the 
faster  we  slide  back  the  better.  Slide  back 
into  the  cradle,  if  going  on  is  into  the  grave: 
—back,  I  tell  you;  back— out  of  your  long 
faces,  and  into  your  long  clothes.  It  is 
among  children  only,  and  as  children 
only,  that  you  will  find  medicine  for  your 
healing  and  true  wisdom  for  your  teach- 
ing. There  is  poison  in  the  counsels  of 
the  men  of  this  world;  the  words  they 
speak  are  all  bitterness,  "the  poison  of 
asps  is  under  their  lips,"  but  "the  suck- 
ing child  shall  play  by  the  hole  of  the 
255 


THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE 

asp."  There  is  death  in  the  looks  of  men. 
"Their  eyes  are  privily  set  against  the 
poor  ":  they  are  as  the  uncharmable  serpent, 
the  cockatrice,  which  slew  by  seeing.  But 
"  the  weaned  child  shall  lay  his  hand  on 
the  cockatrice'  den."  There  is  death  in  the 
steps  of  men:  "  their  feet  are  swift  to  shed 
blood;  they  have  compassed  us  in  our  steps 
like  the  lion  that  is  greedy  of  his  prey,  and 
the  young  lion  lurking  in  secret  places"; 
but,  in  that  kingdom,  the  wolf  shall  lie 
down  with  the  lamb,  and  the  fatling  with 
the  lion,  and  "a  little  child  shall  lead 
them."  There  is  death  in  the  thoughts  of 
men:  the  world  is  one  wide  riddle  to  them, 
darker  and  darker  as  it  draws  to  a  close; 
but  the  secret  of  it  is  known  to  the  child, 
and  the  Lord  of  heaven  and  earth  is  most 
to  be  thanked  in  that  "He  has  hidden 
these  things  from  the  wise  and  prudent, 
and  has  revealed  them  unto  babes."  Yes, 
and  there  is  death— infinitude  of  death— 
in  the  principalities  and  powers  of  men. 
As  far  as  the  east  is  from  the  west,  so  far 
our  sins  are— not  set  from  us,  but  multi- 
plied around  us:  the  Sun  himself,  think 
you  he  now  "rejoices"  to  run  his  course, 
when  he  plunges  westward  to  the  horizon, 
so  widely  red,  not  with  clouds,  but  blood? 
And  it  will  be  red  more  widely  yet.  What- 
256 


WORK 

ever  drought  of  the  early  and  latter  rain 
may  be,  there  will  be  none  of  that  red 
rain.  You  fortify  yourselves,  you  arm 
yourselves  against  it,  in  vain;  the  enemy 
and  avenger  will  be  upon  you  also,  unless 
you  learn  that  it  is  not  out  of  the  mouths 
of  the  knitted  gun,  or  the  smoothed  rifle, 
but  "out  of  the  mouths  of  babes  and  suck- 
lings "  that  the  strength  is  ordained  which 
shall  "still  the  enemy  and  avenger." 


17 


257 


LECTURE  II 
TRAFFIC 


LECTURE 
II 

TRAFFIC 


Delivered  in  the  Town  Hall,  Bradford. 


M 


"Y  good  Yorkshire  friends,  you  asked 
me  down  here  among  your  hills 
that  I  might  talk  to  you  about  this 
Exchange  you  are  going  to  build:  but,  ear- 
nestly and  seriously  asking  you  to  pardon 
me,  I  am  going  to  do  nothing  of  the  kind. 
I  cannot  talk,  or  at  least  can  say  very  little, 
about  this  same  Exchange.  I  must  talk  of 
quite  other  things,  though  not  willingly; 
—I  could  not  deserve  your  pardon  if,  when 
you  invited  me  to  speak  on  one  subject,  I 
wilfully  spoke  on  another.  But  I  cannot 
speak,  to  purpose,  of  anything  about  which 
I  do  not  care;  and  most  simply  and  sor- 
rowfully I  have  to  tell  you,  in  the  outset, 
that  I  do  not  care  about  this  Exchange  of 
yours. 

If,  however,  when  you  sent  me  your  in- 
vitation, I  had  answered,  "I  won't  come, 
I  don't  care  about  the  Exchange  of  Brad- 
ford," you  would  have  been  justly  offended 
261 


THE  CROWN   OF  WILD   OLIVE 

with  me,  not  knowing  the  reasons  of  so 
blunt  a  carelessness.  So  I  have  come  down, 
hoping  that  you  will  patiently  let  me  tell 
you  why,  on  this,  and  many  other  such 
occasions,  I  now  remain  silent,  when  for- 
merly I  should  have  caught  at  the  oppor- 
tunity of  speaking  to  a  gracious  audience. 

In  a  word,  then,  I  do  not  care  about  this 
Exchange,— because  you  don't;  and  because 
you  know  perfectly  well  I  cannot  make  you. 
Look  at  the  essential  conditions  of  the 
case,  which  you,  as  business  men,  know 
perfectly  well,  though  perhaps  you  think 
I  forget  them.  You  are  going  to  spend 
£30,000,  which  to  you,  collectively,  is  no- 
thing; the  buying  a  new  coat  is,  as  to  the 
cost  of  it,  a  much  more  important  matter 
of  consideration,  to  me,  than  building  a 
new  Exchange  is  to  you.  But  you  think 
you  may  as  well  have  the  right  thing  for 
your  money.  You  know  there  are  a  great 
many  odd  styles  of  architecture  about; 
you  don't  want  to  do  anything  ridiculous; 
you  hear  of  me,  among  others,  as  a  respec- 
table architectural  man-milliner;  and  you 
send  for  me,  that  I  may  tell  you  the  lead- 
ing fashion;  and  what  is,  in  our  shops,  for 
the  moment,  the  newest  and  sweetest 
thing  in  pinnacles. 

Now  pardon  me  for  telling  you  frankly, 
262 


TRAFFIC 

you  cannot  have  good  architecture  merely 
by  asking  people's  advice  on  occasion.  All 
good  architecture  is  the  expression  of  na- 
tional life  and  character;  and  it  is  produced 
by  a  prevalent  and  eager  national  taste,  or 
desire  for  beauty.  And  I  want  you  to  think 
a  little  of  the  deep  significance  of  this  word 
"taste";  for  no  statement  of  mine  has 
been  more  earnestly  or  oftener  contro- 
verted than  that  good  taste  is  essentially 
a  moral  quality.  "No,"  say  many  of  my 
antagonists,  "taste  is  one  thing,  morality 
is  another.  Tell  us  what  is  pretty:  we 
shall  be  glad  to  know  that;  but  we  need 
no  sermons,  even  were  you  able  to  preach 
them,  which  may  be  doubted." 

Permit  me,  therefore,  to  fortify  this  old 
dogma  of  mine  somewhat.  Taste  is  not 
only  a  part  and  an  index  of  morality;— it 
is  the  ONLY  morality.  The  first,  and  last, 
and  closest  trial  question  to  any  living  crea- 
ture is,  "What  do  you  like?"  Tell  me 
what  you  like,  and  I  '11  tell  you  what  you 
are.  Go  out  into  the  street,  and  ask  the 
first  man  or  woman  you  meet,  what  their 
"taste"  is;  and  if  they  answer  candidly, 
you  know  them,  body  and  soul.  "  You,  my 
friend  in  the  rags,  with  the  unsteady  gait, 
what  do  you  like?"  "A  pipe,  and  a  quar- 
tern of  gin."  I  know  you.  "You,  good 
263 


THE  CROWN   OF  WILD   OLIVE 

woman,  with  the  quick  step  and  tidy  bon- 
net, what  do  you  like?  "  "A  swept  hearth, 
and  a  clean  tea-table;  and  my  husband  op- 
posite me,  and  a  baby  at  my  breast."  Good, 
I  know  you  also.  "  You,  little  girl  with  the 
golden  hair  and  the  soft  eyes,  what  do  you 
like?"  "My  canary,  and  a  run  among  the 
wood-hyacinths."  "You,  little  boy  with 
the  dirty  hands,  and  the  low  forehead,  what 
do  you  like?"  "A  shy  at  the  sparrows, 
and  a  game  at  pitch  farthing."  Good;  we 
know  them  all  now.  What  more  need  we 
ask? 

"Nay,"  perhaps  you  answer;  "we  need 
rather  to  ask  what  these  people  and  chil- 
dren do,  than  what  they  like.  If  they  do 
right,  it  is  no  matter  that  they  like  what 
is  wrong;  and  if  they  do  wrong,  it  is  no 
matter  that  they  like  what  is  right.  Doing 
is  the  great  thing;  and  it  does  not  matter 
that  the  man  likes  drinking,  so  that  he 
does  not  drink;  nor  that  the  little  girl  likes 
to  be  kind  to  her  canary,  if  she  will  not 
learn  her  lessons;  nor  that  the  little  boy 
likes  throwing  stones  at  the  sparrows,  if 
he  goes  to  the  Sunday-school."  Indeed, 
for  a  short  time,  and  in  a  provisional  sense, 
this  is  true.  For  if,  resolutely,  people  do 
what  is  right,  in  time  to  come  they  like 
doing  it.  But  they  only  are  in  a  right 
264 


TRAFFIC 

moral  state  when  they  have  come  to  like 
doing  it;  and  as  long  as  they  don't  like  it, 
they  are  still  in  a  vicious  state.  The  man 
is  not  in  health  of  body  who  is  always  think- 
ing of  the  bottle  in  the  cupboard,  though 
he  bravely  bears  his  thirst;  but  the  man 
who  heartily  enjoys  water  in  the  morning, 
and  wine  in  the  evening,  each  in  its  proper 
quantity  and  time.  And  the  entire  object 
of  true  education  is  to  make  people  not 
merely  do  the  right  things,  but  enjoy  the 
right  things:— not  merely  industrious,  but 
to  love  industry— not  merely  learned, 
but  to  love  knowledge— not  merely  pure, 
but  to  love  purity— not  merely  just,  but  to 
hunger  and  thirst  after  justice. 

But  you  may  answer  or  think,  "Is  the 
liking  for  outside  ornaments,— for  pictures, 
or  statues,  or  furniture,  or  architecture, 
a  moral  quality?"  Yes,  most  surely,  if  a 
rightly  set  liking.  Taste  for  any  pictures 
or  statues  is  not  a  moral  quality,  but  taste 
for  good  ones  is.  Only  here  again  we  have 
to  define  the  word  "good."  I  don't  mean 
by  "good,"  clever— or  learned— or  difficult 
in  the  doing.  Take  a  picture  by  Teniers, 
of  sots  quarreling  over  their  dice;  it  is  an 
entirely  clever  picture;  so  clever  that  no- 
thing in  its  kind  has  ever  been  done  equal 
to  it;  but  it  is  also  an  entirely  base  and 
265 


THE  CROWN   OF   WILD   OLIVE 

evil  picture.  It  is  an  expression  of  delight 
in  the  prolonged  contemplation  of  a  vile 
thing,  and  delight  in  that  is  an  "unman- 
nered,"  or  "  immoral "  quality.  It  is  "  bad 
taste"  in  the  profoundest  sense— it  is  the 
taste  of  the  devils.  On  the  other  hand,  a 
picture  of  Titian's,  or  a  Greek  statue,  or  a 
Greek  coin,  or  a  Turner  landscape,  ex- 
presses delight  in  the  perpetual  contempla- 
tion of  a  good  and  perfect  thing.  That  is 
an  entirely  moral  quality— it  is  the  taste  of 
the  angels.  And  all  delight  in  fine  art,  and 
all  love  of  it,  resolve  themselves  into  sim- 
ple love  of  that  which  deserves  love.  That 
deserving  is  the  quality  which  we  call 
"loveliness"— (we  ought  to  have  an  oppo- 
site word,  hateliness,  to  be  said  of  the 
things  which  deserve  to  be  hated);  and  it 
is  not  an  indifferent  nor  optional  thing 
whether  we  love  this  or  that;  but  it  is  just 
^  the  vital  function  of  all  our  being.  What 
we  like  determines  what  we  are,  and  is  the 
sign  of  what  we  are;  and  to  teach  taste  is 
s  inevitably  to  form  character. 

As  I  was  thinking  over  this,  in  walking 
up  Fleet  Street  the  other  day,  my  eye 
caught  the  title  of  a  book  standing  open  in 
a  bookseller's  window.  It  was— "On  the 
necessity  of  the  diffusion  of  taste  among 
all  classes."  "Ah,"  I  thought  to  myself, 
"my  classifying  friend,  when  you  have  dif- 
266 


TRAFFIC 

fused  your  taste,  where  will  your  classes 
be?  The  man  who  likes  what  you  like,  be- 
longs to  the  same  class  with  you,  I  think. 
Inevitably  so.  You  may  put  him  to  other 
work  if  you  choose;  but,  by  the  condition 
you  have  brought  him  into,  he  will  dislike 
the  work  as  much  as  you  would  yourself. 
You  get  hold  of  a  scavenger  or  a  coster- 
monger,  who  enjoyed  the  Newgate  '  Calen- 
dar '  for  literature,  and  '  Pop  goes  the  Wea- 
sel' for  music.  You  think  you  can  make 
him  like  Dante  and  Beethoven?  I  wish 
you  joy  of  your  lessons;  but  if  you  do,  you 
have  made  a  gentleman  of  him:— he  won't 
like  to  go  back  to  his  costermongering." 

And  so  completely  and  unexceptionally 
is  this  so  that,  if  I  had  time  to-night,  I 
could  show  you  that  a  nation  cannot  be  af- 
fected by  any  vice,  or  weakness,  without 
expressing  it,  legibly,  and  forever,  either  in 
bad  art,  or  by  want  of  art;  and  that  there 
is  no  national  virtue,  small  or  great,  which 
is  not  manifestly  expressed  in  all  the  art 
which  circumstances  enable  the  people  pos- 
sessing that  virtue  to  produce.  Take,  for 
instance,  your  great  English  virtue  of  en- 
during and  patient  courage.  You  have  at 
present  in  England  only  one  art  of  any  con- 
sequence—that is,  iron-working.  You  know 
thoroughly  well  how  to  cast  and  hammer 
iron.  Now,  do  you  think,  in  those  masses 
267 


THE  CROWN   OF  WILD  OLIVE 

of  lava  which  you  build  volcanic  cones  to 
melt,  and  which  you  forge  at  the  mouths 
of  the  Infernos  you  have  created;  do  you 
think,  on  those  iron  plates,  your  courage 
and  endurance  are  not  written  forever,— 
not  merely  with  an  iron  pen,  but  on  iron 
parchment?  And  take  also  your  great 
English  vice— European  vice— vice  of  all 
the  world— vice  of  all  other  worlds  that 
roll  or  shine  in  heaven,  bearing  with  them 
yet  the  atmosphere  of  hell— the  vice  of 
jealousy,  which  brings  competition  into 
your  commerce,  treachery  into  your  coun- 
cils, and  dishonor  into  your  wars— that 
vice  which  has  rendered  for  you,  and  for 
your  next  neighboring  nation,  the  daily  oc- 
cupations of  existence  no  longer  possible, 
but  with  the  mail  upon  your  breasts  and 
the  sword  loose  in  its  sheath;  so  that  at 
last  you  have  realized  for  all  the  multi- 
tudes of  the  two  great  peoples  who  lead 
the  so-called  civilization  of  the  earth,— you 
have  realized  for  them  all,  I  say,  in  person 
and  in  policy,  what  was  once  true  only  of 
the  rough  Border  riders  of  your  Cheviot 
hills: 

They  carved  at  the  meal 
With  gloves  of  steel, 

And  they  drank  the  red  wine  through  the  helmet 
barr'd  ;— 

268 


TRAFFIC 

do  you  think  that  this  national  shame  and 
dastardliness  of  heart  are  not  written  as 
legibly  on  every  rivet  of  your  iron  armor 
as  the  strength  of  the  right  hands  that 
forged  it? 

Friends,  I  know  not  whether  this  thing 
be  the  more  ludicrous  or  the  more  melan- 
choly. It  is  quite  unspeakably  both.  Sup- 
pose, instead  of  being  now  sent  for  by  you, 
I  had  been  sent  for  by  some  private  gen- 
tleman, living  in  a  suburban  house,  with 
his  garden  separated  only  by  a  fruit  wall 
from  his  next-door  neighbor's;  and  he 
had  called  me  to  consult  with  him  on  the 
furnishing  of  his  drawing-room.  I  begin 
looking  about  me,  and  find  the  walls 
rather  bare;  I  think  such-and-such  a  paper 
might  be  desirable— perhaps  a  little  fresco 
here  and  there  on  the  celling— a  damask 
curtain  or  so  at  the  windows.  "  Ah,"  says 
my  employer,  "damask  curtains,  indeed! 
That 's  all  very  fine,  but  you  know  I  can't 
afford  that  kind  of  thing  just  now!"  "Yet 
the  world  credits  you  with  a  splendid  in- 
come!" "Ah,  yes,"  says  my  friend,  "but 
do  you  know,  at  present  I  am  obliged  to 
spend  it  nearly  all  in  steel  traps?"  "Steel 
traps!  for  whom?  "  "  Why,  for  that  fellow 
on  the  other  side  the  wall,  you  know:  we  're 
very  good  friends,  capital  friends;  but  we 
269 


THE  CROWN   OF  WILD  OLIVE 

are  obliged  to  keep  our  traps  set  on  both 
sides  of  the  wall;  we  could  not  possibly 
keep  on  friendly  terms  without  them,  and 
our  spring-guns.  The  worst  of  it  is,  we 
are  both  clever  fellows  enough;  and  there  's 
never  a  day  passes  that  we  don't  find  out  a 
new  trap,  or  a  new  gun-barrel,  or  some- 
thing; we  spend  about  fifteen  millions  a 
year  each  in  our  traps,  take  it  altogether; 
and  I  don't  see  how  we  're  to  do  with  less." 
A  highly  comic  state  of  life  for  two  private 
gentlemen!  but  for  two  nations,  it  seems 
to  me,  not  wholly  comic.  Bedlam  would 
be  comic,  perhaps,  if  there  were  only  one 
madman  in  it;  and  your  Christmas  panto- 
mime is  comic,  when  there  in  only  one 
clown  in  it;  but  when  the  whole  world 
turns  clown,  and  paints  itself  red  with  its 
own  heart's  blood  instead  of  vermilion,  it 
is  something  else  than  comic,  I  think. 

Mind,  I  know  a  great  deal  of  this  is  play, 
and  willingly  allow  for  that.  You  don't 
know  what  to  do  with  yourselves  for  a  sen- 
sation: fox-hunting  and  cricketing  will  not 
carry  you  through  the  whole  of  this  unen- 
durably  long  mortal  life:  you  liked  pop-guns 
when  you  were  school-boys,  and  rifles  and 
Armstrongs  are  only  the  same  things  bet- 
ter made:  but  then  the  worst  of  it  is  that 
what  was  play  to  you  when  boys,  was  not 
270 


TRAFFIC 


play  to  the  sparrows;  and  what  is  play  to 
you  now,  is  not  play  to  the  small  birds  of 
State  neither;  and  for  the  black  eagles,  you 
are  somewhat  shy  of  taking  shots  at  them, 
if  I  mistake  not. 

I  must  get  back  to  the  matter  in  hand, 
however.  Believe  me,  without  farther  in- 
stance, I  could  show  you,  in  all  time,  that 
every  nation's  vice,  or  virtue,  was  written 
in  its  art:  the  soldiership  of  early  Greece; 
the  sensuality  of  late  Italy;  the  visionary 
religion  of  Tuscany;  the  splendid  human 
energy  of  Venice.  I  have  no  time  to  do 
this  to-night  (I  have  done  it  elsewhere  be- 
fore now);  but  I  proceed  to  apply  the  prin- 
ciple to  ourselves  in  a  more  searching 
manner. 

I  notice  that  among  all  the  new  build- 
ings which  cover  your  once  wild  hills, 
churches  and  schools  are  mixed  in  due, 
that  is  to  say,  in  large  proportion,  with 
your  mills  and  mansions;  and  I  notice  also 
that  the  churches  and  schools  are  almost 
always  Gothic,  and  the  mansions  and  mills 
are  never  Gothic.  May  I  ask  the  meaning 
of  this;  for,  remember,  it  is  peculiarly  a 
modern  phenomenon?  When  Gothic  was 
invented,  houses  were  Gothic  as  well  as 
churches;  and  when  the  Italian  style  su- 
perseded the  Gothic,  churches  were  Italian 
271 


THE  CROWN   OF  WILD  OLIVE 

as  well  as  houses.  If  there  is  a  Gothic 
spire  to  the  cathedral  of  Antwerp,  there  is 
a  Gothic  belfry  to  the  Hotel  de  Ville  at 
Brussels;  if  Inigo  Jones  builds  an  Italian 
Whitehall,  Sir  Christopher  Wren  builds  an 
Italian  St.  Paul's.  But  now  you  live  under 
one  school  of  architecture,  and  worship 
under  another.  What  do  you  mean  by 
doing  this?  Am  I  to  understand  that  you 
are  thinking  of  changing  your  architec- 
ture back  to  Gothic;  and  that  you  treat 
your  churches  experimentally,  because  it 
does  not  matter  what  mistakes  you  make 
in  a  church?  Or  am  I  to  understand  that 
you  consider  Gothic  a  preeminently  sacred 
and  beautiful  mode  of  building,  which  you 
think,  like  the  fine  frankincense,  should  be 
mixed  for  the  tabernacle  only,  and  reserved 
for  your  religious  services?  For  if  this  be 
the  feeling,  though  it  may  seem  at  first  as 
if  it  were  graceful  and  reverent,  at  the 
root  of  the  matter,  it  signifies  neither  more 
nor  less  than  that  you  have  separated  your 
religion  from  your  life. 

For  consider  what  a  wide  significance 
this  fact  has;  and  remember  that  it  is  not 
you  only,  but  all  the  people  of  England,  who 
are  behaving  thus,  just  now. 

You  have  all  got  into  the  habit  of  calling 
the  church  "the  house  of  God."  I  have 
272 


TRAFFIC 

seen,  over  the  doors  of  many  churches,  the 
legend  actually  carved,  "  This  is  the  house 
of  God,  and  this  is  the  gate  of  heaven." 
Now,  note  where  that  legend  comes  from, 
and  of  what  place  it  was  first  spoken.  A 
boy  leaves  his  father's  house  to  go  on  a 
long  journey  on  foot,  to  visit  his  uncle:  he 
has  to  cross  a  wild  hill-desert;  just  as  if 
one  of  your  own  boys  had  to  cross  the 
wolds  to  visit  an  uncle  at  Carlisle.  The 
second  or  third  day  your  boy  finds  himself 
somewhere  between  Hawes  and  Brough,  in 
the  midst  of  the  moors,  at  sunset.  It  is 
stony  ground,  and  boggy;  he  cannot  go 
one  foot  farther  that  night.  Down  he  lies, 
to  sleep,  on  Wharnside,  where  best  he  may, 
gathering  a  few  of  the  stones  together  to 
put  under  his  head;— so  wild  the  place  is, 
he  cannot  get  anything  but  stones.  And 
there,  lying  under  the  broad  night,  he  has 
a  dream;  and  he  sees  a  ladder  set  up  on 
the  earth,  and  the  top  of  it  reaches  to 
heaven,  and  the  angels  of  God  are  seen 
ascending  and  descending  upon  it.  And 
when  he  wakes  out  of  his  sleep,  he  says, 
"How  dreadful  is  this  place;  surely  this  is 
none  other  than  the  house  of  God,  and  this 
is  the  gate  of  heaven."  This  PLACE,  ob- 
serve; not  this  church;  not  this  city;  not 
this  stone,  even,  which  he  puts  up  for  a 
18  273 


THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE 

memorial— the  piece  of  flint  on  which  his 
head  was  lain.  But  this  place ;  this  windy 
slope  of  Wharnside;  this  moorland  hollow, 
torrent-bitten,  snow-blighted!  this  any 
place  where  God  lets  down  the  ladder. 
And  how  are  you  to  know  where  that  will 
be?  or  how  are  you  to  determine  where  it 
may  be,  but  by  being  ready  for  it  always? 
Do  you  know  where  the  lightning  is  to  fall 
next?  You  do  know  that,  partly;  you  can 
guide  the  lightning;  but  you  cannot  guide 
the  going  forth  of  the  Spirit,  which  is  as 
that  lightning  when  it  shines  from  the  east 
to  the  west. 

But  the  perpetual  and  insolent  warping 
of  that  strong  verse  to  serve  a  merely  ec- 
clesiastical purpose,  is  only  one  of  the  thou- 
sand instances  in  which  we  sink  back  into 
gross  Judaism.  We  call  our  churches 
"  temples."  Now,  you  know  perfectly  well 
they  are  not  temples.  They  have  never 
had,  never  can  have,  anything  whatever  to 
do  with  temples.  They  are  "  synagogues  " 
—  "gathering-places"— where  you  gather 
yourselves  together  as  an  assembly;  and 
by  not  calling  them  so,  you  again  miss  the 
force  of  another  mighty  text— "Thou,  when 
thou  prayest,  shalt  not  be  as  the  hypocrites 
are:  for  they  love  to  pray  standing  in  the 
churches"  [we  should  translate  it],  "that 
274 


TRAFFIC 

they  may  be  seen  of  men.  But  thou,  when 
thou  prayest,  enter  into  thy  closet,  and 
when  thou  hast  shut  thy  door,  pray  to  thy 
Father  which  is,"  not  in  chancel  nor  in 
aisle,  but  "in  secret." 

Now,  you  feel,  as  I  say  this  to  you— I 
know  you  feel— as  if  I  were  trying  to  take 
away  the  honor  of  your  churches.  Not  so; 
I  am  trying  to  prove  to  you  the  honor  of 
your  houses  and  your  hills;  not  that  the 
Church  is  not  sacred— but  that  the  whole 
Earth  is.  I  would  have  you  feel  what  care- 
less, what  constant,  what  infectious  sin 
there  is  in  all  modes  of  thought,  whereby, 
in  calling  your  churches  only  "holy,"  you 
call  your  hearths  and  homes  "profane  ";  and 
have  separated  yourselves  from  the  heathen 
by  casting  all  your  household  gods  to  the 
ground,  instead  of  recognizing,  in  the  places 
of  their  many  and  feeble  Lares,  the  presence 
of  your  One  and  Mighty  Lord  and  Lar. 

"But  what  has  all  this  to  do  with  our 
Exchange?  "  you  ask  me,  impatiently.  My 
dear  friends,  it  has  just  everything  to  do 
with  it;  on  these  inner  and  great  questions 
depend  all  the  outer  and  little  ones;  and  if 
you  have  asked  me  down  here  to  speak  to 
you,  because  you  had  before  been  interested 
in  anything  I  have  written,  you  must  know 
that  all  I  have  yet  said  about  architecture 
275 


THE  CROWN   OF  WILD   OLIVE 

was  to  show  this.  The  book  I  called  "The 
Seven  Lamps"  was  to  show  that  certain 
right  states  of  temper  and  moral  feeling 
were  the  magic  powers  by  which  all  good 
architecture,  without  exception,  had  been 
produced.  "The  Stones  of  Venice"  had, 
from  beginning  to  end,  no  other  aim  than 
to  show  that  the  Gothic  architecture  of 
Venice  had  arisen  out  of,  and  indicated  in 
all  its  features,  a  state  of  pure  national 
faith,  and  of  domestic  virtue;  and  that  its 
Renaissance  architecture  had  arisen  out  of, 
and  in  all  its  features  indicated,  a  state  of 
concealed  national  infidelity,  and  of  domes- 
tic corruption.  And  now,  you  ask  me  what 
style  is  best  to  build  in,  and  how  can  I  an- 
swer, knowing  the  meaning  'of  the  two 
styles,  but  by  another  question— do  you 
mean  to  build  as  Christians  or  as  Infidels? 
And  still  more— do  you  mean  to  build  as 
honest  Christians  or  as  honest  Infidels?  as 
thoroughly  and  confessedly  either  one  or 
the  other?  You  don't  like  to  be  asked  such 
rude  questions.  I  cannot  help  it;  they  are 
of  much  more  importance  than  this  Ex- 
change business;  and  if  they  can  be  at  once 
answered,  the  Exchange  business  settles 
itself  in  a  moment.  But  before  I  press 
them  farther,  I  must  ask  leave  to  explain 
one  point  clearly. 

276 


TRAFFIC 

In  all  my  past  work,  my  endeavor  has 
been  to  show  that  good  architecture  is  es- 
sentially religious— the  production  of  a 
faithful  and  virtuous,  not  of  an  infidel  and 
corrupted  people.  But  in  the  course  of  do- 
ing this,  I  have  had  also  to  show  that  good 
architecture  is  not  ecclesiastical.  People 
are  so  apt  to  look  upon  religion  as  the  busi- 
ness of  the  clergy,  not  their  own,  that  the 
moment  they  hear  of  anything  depending 
on  "religion,"  they  think  it  must  also  have 
depended  on  the  priesthood;  and  I  have  had 
to  take  what  place  was  to  be  occupied  be- 
tween these  two  errors,  and  fight  both,  of  ten 
with  seeming  contradiction.  Good  archi- 
tecture is  the  work  of  good  and  believing 
men;  therefore,  you  say,  at  least  some  peo- 
ple say,  "Good  architecture  must  essen- 
tially have  been  the  work  of  the  clergy, 
not  of  the  laity."  No— a  thousand  times 
no;  good  architecture l  has  always  been 
the  work  of  the  commonalty,  not  of  the 
clergy.  What,  you  say,  those  glorious 
cathedrals— the  pride  of  Europe— did  their 
builders  not  form  Gothic  architecture? 
No;  they  corrupted  Gothic  architecture. 
Gothic  was  formed  in  the  baron's  castle, 
and  the  burgher's  street.  It  was  formed 

i  [And  all  other  arts,  for  the  most  part ;  even  of  incredulous 
and  secularly  minded  commonalties]. 

277 


THE   CROWN   OP   WILD   OLIVE 

by  the  thoughts,  and  hands,  and  powers 
of  laboring  citizens  and  warrior  kings. 
By  the  monk  it  was  used  as  an  instru- 
ment for  the  aid  of  his  superstition:  when 
that  superstition  became  a  beautiful  mad- 
ness, and  the  best  hearts  of  Europe  vainly 
dreamed  and  pined  in  the  cloister,  and 
vainly  raged  and  perished  in  the  crusade, 
—through  that  fury  of  perverted  faith  and 
wasted  war,  the  Gothic  rose  also  to  its 
loveliest,  most  fantastic,  and  finally,  most 
foolish  dreams;  and  in  those  dreams,  was 
lost. 

I  hope,  now,  that  there  is  no  risk  of  your 
misunderstanding  me  when  I  come  to  the 
gist  of  what  I  want  to  say  to-night;— when 
I  repeat  that  every  great  national  archi- 
tecture has  been  the  result  and  exponent 
of  a  great  national  religion.  You  can't 
have  bits  of  it  here,  bits  there— you  must 
have  it  everywhere  or  nowhere.  It  is  not 
the  monopoly  of  a  clerical  company— it  is 
not  the  exponent  of  a  theological  dogma- 
it  is  not  the  hieroglyphic  writing  of  an  ini- 
tiated priesthood;  it  is  the  manly  language 
of  a  people  inspired  by  resolute  and  com- 
mon purpose,  and  rendering  resolute  and 
common  fidelity  to  the  legible  laws  of  an 
undoubted  God. 

Now  there  have  as  yet  been  three  distinct 
278 


TRAFFIC 

schools  of  European  architecture.  I  say, 
European,  because  Asiatic  and  African 
architectures  belong  so  entirely  to  other 
races  and  climates  that  there  is  no  ques- 
tion of  them  here;  only,  in  passing,  I  will 
simply  assure  you  that  whatever  is  good 
or  great  in  Egypt,  and  Syria,  and  India,  is 
just  good  or  great  for  the  same  reasons  as 
the  buildings  on  our  side  of  the  Bosporus. 
We  Europeans,  then,  have  had  three  great 
religions:  the  Greek,  which  was  the  wor- 
ship of  the  God  of  Wisdom  and  Power;  the 
Medieval,  which  was  the  worship  of  the 
God  of  Judgment  and  Consolation;  the  Re- 
naissance, which  was  the  worship  of  the 
God  of  Pride  and  Beauty:  these  three  we 
have  had— they  are  past,— and  now,  at  last, 
we  English  have  got  a  fourth  religion,  and 
a  God  of  our  own,  about  which  I  want  to 
ask  you.  But  I  must  explain  these  three 
old  ones  first. 

I  repeat,  first,  the  Greeks  essentially 
worshiped  the  God  of  Wisdom;  so  that 
whatever  contended  against  their  religion, 
—to  the  Jews  a  stumbling-block,— was,  to 
the  Greeks— Foo  lishness. 

The  first  Greek  idea  of  Deity  was  that 

expressed  in  the  word,  of  which  we  keep 

the  remnant  in  our  words  "Di-urnal"  and 

"Di- vine  "—the  god  of  Day,  Jupiter  the  re- 

279 


THE  CROWN   OP  WILD   OLIVE 

vealer.  Athena  is  his  daughter,  but  espe- 
cially daughter  of  the  Intellect,  springing 
armed  from  the  head.  We  are  only  with 
the  help  of  recent  investigation  beginning 
to  penetrate  the  depth  of  meaning  couched 
under  the  Athenaic  symbols:  but  I  may 
note  rapidly,  that  her  aegis,  the  mantle 
with  the  serpent  fringes,  in  which  she  often, 
in  the  best  statues,  is  represented  as  fold- 
ing up  her  left  hand,  for  better  guard;  and 
the  Gorgon,  on  her  shield,  are  both  repre- 
sentative mainly  of  the  chilling  horror  and 
sadness  (turning  men  to  stone,  as  it  were) 
of  the  outmost  and  superficial  spheres  of 
knowledge— that  knowledge  which  sepa- 
rates, in  bitterness,  hardness,  and  sorrow, 
the  heart  of  the  full-grown  man  from  the 
heart  of  the  child.  For  out  of  imperfect 
knowledge  spring  terror,  dissension,  dan- 
ger, and  disdain;  but  from  perfect  know- 
ledge, given  by  the  full-revealed  Athena, 
strength  and  peace,  in  sign  of  which  she  is 
crowned  with  the  olive  spray,  and  bears 
the  resistless  spear. 

This,  then,  was  the  Greek  conception  of 
purest  Deity;  and  every  habit  of  life,  and 
every  form  of  his  art  developed  themselves 
from  the  seeking  this  bright,  serene,  resist- 
less wisdom;  and  setting  himself,  as  a 
man,  to  do  things  evermore  rightly  and 
280 


TRAFFIC 

strongly; 1  not  with  any  ardent  affection  or 
ultimate  hope;  but  with  a  resolute  and 
contingent  energy  of  will,  as  knowing  that 
for  failure  there  was  no  consolation,  and 
for  sin  there  was  no  remission.  And  the 
Greek  architecture  rose  unerring,  bright, 
clearly  defined,  and  self-contained. 

Next  followed  in  Europe  the  great  Chris- 
tian faith,  which  was  essentially  the  re- 
ligion of  Comfort.  Its  great  doctrine  is  the 
remission  of  sins;  for  which  cause,  it  hap- 
pens, too  often,  in  certain  phases  of  Chris- 
tianity, that  sin  and  sickness  themselves 
are  partly  glorified,  as  if,  the  more  you  had 
to  be  healed  of,  the  more  divine  was  the 
healing.  The  practical  result  of  this  doc- 
trine, in  art,  is  a  continual  contemplation 
of  sin  and  disease,  and  of  imaginary  states 
of  purification  from  them;  thus  we  have 
an  architecture  conceived  in  a  mingled 
sentiment  of  melancholy  and  aspiration, 
partly  severe,  partly  luxuriant,  which  will 

1  [It  is  an  error  to  suppose  that  the  Greek  worship,  or  seeking, 
was  chiefly  of  Beauty.  It  was  essentially  of  lightness  and 
strength,  founded  on  Forethought:  the  principal  character 
of  Greek  art  is  not  beauty,  but  design  :  and  the  Dorian  Apollo- 
worship  and  Athenian  Virgin-worship  are  both  expressions 
of  adoration  of  divine  wisdom  and  purity.  Next  to  these 
great  deities,  rank,  in  power  over  the  national  mind,  Diony- 
sius  and  Ceres,  the  givers  of  human  strength  and  life ;  then, 
for  heroic  examples,  Hercules.  There  is  no  Venus-worship 
among  the  Greeks  in  the  great  times:  and  the  Muses  are 
essentially  teachers  of  Truth,  and  of  its  harmonies.  Com- 
pare "  Aratra  Pentelici,"  \  200.] 

281 


THE  CROWN   OF   WILD   OLIVE 

bend  itself  to  every  one  of  our  needs,  and 
every  one  of  our  fancies,  and  be  strong  or 
weak  with  us,  as  we  are  strong  or  weak 
ourselves.  It  is,  of  all  architecture,  the 
basest,  when  base  people  build  it— of  all, 
the  noblest,  when  built  by  the  noble. 

And  now  note  that  both  these  religions 
—Greek  and  Medieval— perished  by  false- 
hood in  their  own  main  purpose.  The 
Greek  religion  of  Wisdom  perished  in  a 
false  philosophy— "Oppositions  of  science, 
falsely  so  called."  The  Medieval  religion 
of  Consolation  perished  in  false  comfort; 
in  remission  of  sins  given  lyingly.  It 
was  the  selling  of  absolution  that  ended 
the  Medieval  faith;  and  I  can  tell  you  more, 
it  is  the  selling  of  absolution  which,  to  the 
end  of  time,  will  mark  false  Christianity. 
Pure  Christianity  gives  her  remission  of 
sins  only  by  ending  them;  but  false  Chris- 
tianity gets  her  remission  of  sins  by  com- 
pounding for  them.  And  there  are  many 
ways  of  compounding  for  them.  We  Eng- 
lish have  beautiful  little  quiet  ways  of  buy- 
ing absolution,  whether  in  low  Church  or 
high,  far  more  cunning  than  any  of  Tetzel's 
trading. 

Then,  thirdly,  there  followed  the  religion 
of  Pleasure,  in  which  all  Europe  gave  itself 
to  luxury,  ending  in  death.  First,  bals 
282 


TRAFFIC 

masques  in  every  saloon,  and  then  guillo- 
tines in  every  square.  And  all  these  three 
worships  issue  in  vast  temple-building. 
Your  Greek  worshiped  Wisdom,  and  built 
you  the  Parthenon— the  Virgin's  temple. 
The  Medieval  worshiped  Consolation,  and 
built  you  Virgin  temples  also— but  to  our 
Lady  of  Salvation.  Then  the  Revivalist 
worshiped  beauty,  of  a  sort,  and  built  you 
Versailles  and  the  Vatican.  Now,  lastly, 
will  you  tell  me  what  we  worship,  and  what 
we  build? 

You  know  we  are  speaking  always  of 
the  real,  active,  continual,  national  wor- 
ship; that  by  which  men  act,  while  they 
live;  not  that  which  they  talk  of,  when 
they  die.  Now,  we  have,  indeed,  a  nominal 
religion,  to  which  we  pay  tithes  of  property 
and  sevenths  of  time;  but  we  have  also  a 
practical  and  earnest  religion,  to  which  we 
devote  nine  tenths  of  our  property,  and 
six  sevenths  of  our  time.  And  we  dispute 
a  great  deal  about  the  nominal  religion: 
but  we  are  all  unanimous  about  this  prac- 
tical one;  of  which  I  think  you  will  admit 
that  the  ruling  goddess  may  be  best  gen- 
erally described  as  the  "Goddess  of  Get- 
ting-on,"  or  "Britannia  of  the  Market." 
The  Athenians  had  an  "Athena  Agoraia," 
or  Athena  of  the  Market;  but  she  was  a 
283 


THE  CROWN   OF   WILD   OLIVE 

subordinate  type  of  their  goddess,  while 
our  Britannia  Agoraia  is  the  principal  type 
of  ours.  And  all  your  great  architectural 
works  are,  of  course,  built  to  her.  It  is 
long  since  you  built  a  great  cathedral;  and 
how  you  would  laugh  at  me  if  I  proposed 
building  a  cathedral  on  the  top  of  one  of 
these  hills  of  yours,  to  make  it  an  Acrop- 
olis! But  your  railroad  mounds,  vaster 
than  the  walls  of  Babylon;  your  railroad- 
stations,  vaster  than  the  temple  of  Ephe- 
sus,  and  innumerable;  your  chimneys,  how 
much  more  mighty  and  costly  than  cathe- 
dral spires!  your  harbor-piers;  your  ware- 
houses; your  Exchanges!— all  these  are 
built  to  your  great  Goddess  of  "Getting- 
on  ";  and  she  has  formed,  and  will  continue 
to  form,  your  architecture,  as  long  as  you 
worship  her;  and  it  is  quite  vain  to  ask 
me  to  tell  you  how  to  build  to  her;  you 
know  far  better  than  I. 

There  might,  indeed,  on  some  theories, 
be  a  conceivably  good  architecture  for  Ex- 
changes—that is  to  say,  if  there  were  any 
heroism  in  the  fact  or  deed  of  exchange, 
which  might  be  typically  carved  on  the 
outside  of  your  building.  For,  you  know, 
all  beautiful  architecture  must  be  adorned 
with  sculpture  or  painting;  and  for  sculp- 
ture or  painting,  you  must  have  a  subject. 
284 


TRAFFIC 

And  hitherto  it  has  been  a  received  opinion 
among  the  nations  of  the  world  that  the 
only  right  subjects  for  either,  were  hero- 
isms of  some  sort.  Even  on  his  pots  and 
his  flagons,  the  Greek  put  a  Hercules  slay- 
ing lions,  or  an  Apollo  slaying  serpents,  or 
Bacchus  slaying  melancholy  giants,  and 
earth-born  despondencies.  On  his  temples, 
the  Greek  put  contests  of  great  warriors 
in  founding  states,  or  of  gods  with  evil 
spirits.  On  his  houses  and  temples  alike, 
the  Christian  put  carvings  of  angels  con- 
quering devils;  or  of  hero-martyrs  ex- 
changing this  world  for  another:  subject 
inappropriate,  I  think,  to  our  direction  of 
exchange  here.  And  the  Master  of  Chris- 
tians not  only  left  His  followers  without 
any  orders  as  to  the  sculpture  of  affairs  of 
exchange  on  the  outside  of  buildings,  but 
gave  some  strong  evidence  of  His  dislike 
of  affairs  of  exchange  within  them.  And 
yet  there^  might  surely  be  a  heroism  in 
such  affairs;  and  all  commerce  become  a 
Jdnd  of  selling  of  doves,  not  impious.  The 
wonder  has  always  been  great  to  me,  that 
heroism  has  never  been  supposed  to  be 
in  any  wise  consistent  with  the  practice  of 
supplying  people  with  food,  or  clothes;  but 
rather  with  that  of  quartering  one's  self 
upon  them  for  food,  and  stripping  them  of 
285 


THE  CROWN   OF   WILD   OLIVE 

their  clothes.  Spoiling  of  armor  is  an 
heroic  deed  in  all  ages;  but  the  selling  of 
clothes,  old,  or  new,  has  never  taken  any 
color  of  magnanimity.  Yet  one  does  not 
see  why  feeding  the  hungry  and  clothing 
the  naked  should  ever  become  base  busi- 
nesses, even  when  engaged  in  on  a  large 
scale.  If  one  could  contrive  to  attach  the 
notion  of  conquest  to  them  anyhow!  so 
that,  supposing  there  were  anywhere  an 
obstinate  race,  who  refused  to  be  com- 
forted, one  might  take  some  pride  in  giv- 
ing them  compulsory  comfort!1  and,  as  it 
were,  "occupying  a  country"  with  one's 
gifts,  instead  of  one's  armies?  If  one 
could  only  consider  it  as  much  a  victory 
to  get  a  barren  field  sown,  as  to  get  an 
eared  field  stripped;  and  contend  who 
should  build  villages,  instead  of  who  should 
"  carry  "  them !  Are  not  all  forms  of  hero- 
ism conceivable  in  doing  these  serviceable 
deeds?  You  doubt  who  is  strongest?  It 
might  be  ascertained  by  push  of  spade,  as 
well  as  push  of  sword.  Who  is  wisest? 
There  are  witty  things  to  be  thought  of  in 
planning  other  business  than  campaigns. 
Who  is  bravest?  There  are  always  the 
elements  to  fight  with,  stronger  than  men; 
and  nearly  as  merciless. 

1  [Quite  serious,  all  this,  though  it  reads  like  jest.] 
286 


TRAFFIC 

The  only  absolutely  and  unapproachably 
heroic  element  in  the  soldier's  work  seems 
to  be— that  he  is  paid  little  for  it— and 
regularly:  while  you  traffickers,  and  ex- 
changers, and  others  occupied  in  presum- 
ably benevolent  business,  like  to  be  paid 
much  for  it— and  by  chance.  I  never  can 
make  out  how  it  is  that  a  knight-errant 
does  not  expect  to  be  paid  for  his  trouble, 
but  a  peddler-errant  always  does;— that 
people  are  willing  to  take  hard  knocks  for 
nothing,  but  never  to  sell  ribbons  cheap; 
that  they  are  ready  to  go  on  fervent  cru- 
sades, to  recover  the  tomb  of  a  buried  God, 
but  never  on  any  travels  to  fulfil  the  orders 
of  a  living  one;— that  they  will  go  anywhere 
barefoot  to  preach  their  faith,  but  must  be 
well  bribed  to  practise  it,  and  are  perfectly 
ready  to  give  the  Gospel  gratis,  but  never 
the  loaves  and  fishes.1 

If  you  chose  to  take  the  matter  up  on 
any  such  soldierly  principle;  to  do  your 
commerce,  and  your  feeding  of  nations,  for 
fixed  salaries;  and  to  be  as  particular  about 
giving  people  the  best  food,  and  the  best 
cloth,  as  soldiers  are  about  giving  them  the 
best  gunpowder,  I  could  carve  something 

1  [Please  think  over  this  paragraph,  too  briefly  and  antitheti- 
cally put,  but  one  of  those  which  I  am  happiest  in  having 
written.] 

287 


THE  CROWN   OF  WILD   OLIVE 

for  you  on  your  Exchange  worth  looking  at. 
But  I  can  only  at  present  suggest  decorat- 
ing its  frieze  with  pendent  purses;  and 
making  its  pillars  broad  at  the  base,  for 
the  sticking  of  bills.  And  in  the  innermost 
chambers  of  it  there  might  be  a  statue  of 
Britannia  of  the  Market,  who  may  have, 
perhaps  advisedly,  a  partridge  for  her  crest, 
typical  at  once  of  her  courage  in  fighting 
for  noble  ideas,  and  of  her  interest  in  game; 
and  round  its  neck,  the  inscription  in  gol- 
den letters,  "Perdix  fovit  quae  non  pepe- 
rit." 1  Then,  for  her  spear,  she  might  have 
a  weaver's  beam;  and  on  her  shield,  in- 
stead of  St.  George's  Cross,  the  Milanese 
boar,  semi-fleeced,  with  the  town  of  Gen- 
nesaret  proper,  in  the  field;  and  the  legend, 
"  In  the  best  market," 2  and  her  corselet, 
of  leather,  folded  over  her  heart  in  the 
shape  of  a  purse,  with  thirty  slits  in  it,  for 
a  piece  of  money  to  go  in  at,  on  each  day 
of  the  month.  And  I  doubt  not  but  that 
people  would  come  to  see  your  Exchange, 
and  its  goddess,  with  applause. 

Nevertheless,  I  want  to  point  out  to  you 
certain  strange  characters  in  this  goddess 

1  Jeremiah  xvii.  11  (best  in  Septuagint  and  Vulgate).    "As 
the  partridge,  fostering  what  she  brought  not  forth,  so  he  that 
getteth  riches,  not  by  right,  shall  leave  them  in  the  midst  of 
his  days,  and  at  his  end  shall  be  a  fool." 

2  [Meaning,  fully,  "  We  have  brought  our  pigs  to  it."] 

288 


aAisq  I 
guoure)  siq^  jo  ! 
as[a  A'poqamos— 
^ou  op  noA"  ji  ^n 
jo  eiqnoj^  aq^  ^i 
C  ure  j  JQJ  4ss^ 
os  ji  ipueds 

W8QIU   HOA  OQ 


•uoi^senb 


jo  uoi^sseo  jo  $i 
-senb  ou  SIZM.  9J 


aq^ 


jaq  jo 
ui 


THE   CROWN   OF   WILD   OLIVE 

when  you  have  gathered,  finally  eat?  You 
gather  gold:— will  you  make  your  house- 
roofs  of  it,  or  pave  your  streets  with  it?  That 
is  still  one  way  of  spending  it.  But  if  you  keep 
it,  that  you  may  get  more,  I  '11  give  you  more; 
I  '11  give  you  all  the  gold  you  want— all  you 
can  imagine— if  you  can  tell  me  what  you  '11 
do  with  it.  You  shall  have  thousands  of 
gold  pieces;  — thousands  of  thousands  — 
millions— mountains,  of  gold:  where  will 
you  keep  them?  Will  you  put  an  Olympus 
of  silver  upon  a  golden  Pelion— make  Ossa 
like  a  wart?  Do  you  think  the  rain  and 
dew  would  then  come  down  to  you,  in  the 
streams  from  such  mountains,  more  bless- 
edly than  they  will  down  the  mountains 
which  God  has  made  for  you,  of  moss  and 
whinstone?  But  it  is  not  gold  that  you  want 
to  gather!  What  is  it?  greenbacks?  No; 
not  those  neither.  What  is  it  then— is  it 
ciphers  after  a  capital  I?  Cannot  you  prac- 
tise writing  ciphers,  and  write  as  many  as 
you  want !  Write  ciphers  for  an  hour  every 
morning,  in  a  big  book,  and  say  every  even- 
ing, I  am  worth  all  those  naughts  more 
than  I  was  yesterday.  Won't  that  do? 
Well,  what  in  the  name  of  Plutus  is  it 
you  want?  Not  gold,  not  greenbacks,  not 
ciphers  after  a  capital  I?  You  will  have  to 
answer,  after  all,  "No;  we  want,  somehow 
290 


TRAFFIC 

or  other,  money's  worth"  Well,  what  is 
that?  Let  your  Goddess  of  Getting-on  dis- 
cover it,  and  let  her  learn  to  stay  therein. 

II.  But  there  is  yet  another  question  to 
be  asked  respecting  this  Goddess  of  Get- 
ting-on.  The  first  was  of  the  Continuance 
of  her  power;  the  second  is  of  its  Extent. 

Pallas  and  the  Madonna  were  supposed 
to  be  all  the  world's  Pallas,  and  all  the 
world's  Madonna.  They  could  teach  all 
men,  and  they  could  comfort  all  men. 
But,  look  strictly  into  the  nature  of  the 
power  of  your  Goddess  of  Getting-on;  and 
you  will  find  she  is  the  Goddess— not  of 
everybody's  getting  on— but  only  of  some- 
body's getting  on.  This  is  a  vital,  or 
rather  deathful,  distinction.  Examine  it 
in  your  own  ideal  of  the  state  of  national 
life  which  this  Goddess  is  to  evoke  and 
maintain.  I  asked  you  what  it  was,  when 
I  was  last  here; ]— you  have  never  told  me. 
Now,  shall  I  try  to  tell  you? 

Your  ideal  of  human  life  then  is,  I  think, 
that  it  should  be  passed  in  a  pleasant  un- 
dulating world,  with  iron  and  coal  every- 
where underneath  it.  On  each  pleasant 
bank  of  this  world  is  to  be  a  beautiful 
mansion,  with  two  wings;  and  stables,  and 
coach-houses;  a  moderately  sized  park; 

1  "  The  Two  Paths,"  §  89. 
291 


THE  CROWN   OF  WILD   OLIVE 

a  large  garden  and  hothouses;  and  pleas- 
ant carriage  drives  through  the  shub- 
beries.  In  this  mansion  are  to  live  the 
favored  votaries  of  the  Goddess;  the  Eng- 
lish gentleman,  with  his  gracious  wife,  and 
his  beautiful  family;  he  always  able  to  have 
the  boudoir  and  the  jewels  for  the  wife, 
and  the  beautiful  ball  dresses  for  the  daugh- 
ters, and  hunters  for  the  sons,  and  a  shoot- 
ing in  the  Highlands  for  himself.  At  the 
bottom  of  the  bank  is  to  be  the  mill;  not 
less  than  a  quarter  of  a  mile  long,  with  one 
steam-engine  at  each  end,  and  two  in  the 
middle,  and  a  chimney  three  hundred  feet 
high.  In  this  mill  are  to  be  in  constant 
employment  from  eight  hundred  to  a  thou- 
sand workers,  who  never  drink,  never 
strike,  always  go  to  church  on  Sunday,  and 
always  express  themselves  in  respectful 
language. 

Is  not  that,  broadly,  and  in  the  main 
features,  the  kind  of  thing  you  propose  to 
yourselves?  It  is  very  pretty  indeed,  seen 
from  above;  not  at  all  so  pretty,  seen  from 
below.  For,  observe,  while  to  one  family 
this  deity  is  indeed  the  Goddess  of  Getting- 
on,  to  a  thousand  families  she  is  the  God- 
dess of  not  Getting-on.  "Nay,"  you  say, 
"they  have  all  their  chance."  Yes,  so  has 
every  one  in  a  lottery,  but  there  must 
292 


TRAFFIC 

always  be  the  same  number  of  blanks. 
"Ah!  but  in  a  lottery  it  is  not  skill  and  in- 
telligence which  take  the  lead,  but  blind 
chance."  What  then!  do  you  think  the 
old  practice,  that  "they  should  take  who 
have  the  power,  and  they  should  keep  who 
can,"  is  less  iniquitous,  when  the  power 
has  become  power  of  brains  instead  of  fist? 
and  that,  though  we  may  not  take  advan- 
tage of  a  child's  or  a  woman's  weakness, 
we  may  of  a  man's  foolishness?  "  Nay,  but 
finally,  work  must  be  done,  and  some  one 
must  be  at  the  top,  some  one  at  the  bot- 
tom." Granted,  my  friends.  Work  must 
always  be,  and  captains  of  work  must 
always  be;  and  if  you  in  the  least  remem- 
ber the  tone  of  any  of  my  writings,  you 
must  know  that  they  are  thought  unfit  for 
this  age,  because  they  are  always  insisting 
on  need  of  government,  and  speaking  with 
scorn  of  liberty.  But  I  beg  you  to  observe 
that  there  is  a  wide  difference  between 
being  captains  or  governors  of  work,  and 
taking  the  profits  of  it.  It  does  not  fol- 
low, because  you  are  general  of  an  army, 
that  you  are  to  take  all  the  treasure,  or 
land,  it  wins  (if  it  fight  for  treasure  or 
land);  neither,  because  you  are  king  of  a 
nation,  that  you  are  to  consume  all  the 
profits  of  the  nation's  work.  Real  kings, 
293 


THE  CROWN   OF  WILD  OLIVE 

on  the  contrary,  are  known  invariably  by 
their  doing  quite  the  reverse  of  this,— by 
their  taking  the  least  possible  quantity  of 
the  nation's  work  for  themselves.  There 
is  no  test  of  real  kinghood  so  infallible 
as  that.  Does  the  crowned  creature  live 
simply,  bravely,  unostentatiously?  prob- 
ably he  is  a  King.  Does  he  cover  his  body 
with  jewels,  and  his  table  with  delicates? 
in  all  probability  he  is  not  a  King.  It  is 
possible  he  may  be,  as  Solomon  was;  but 
that  is  when  the  nation  shares  his  splendor 
with  him.  Solomon  made  gold,  not  only 
to  be  in  his  own  palace  as  stones,  but  to 
be  in  Jerusalem  as  stones.  But,  even  so, 
for  the  most  part,  these  splendid  kinghoods 
expire  in  ruin,  and  only  the  true  kinghoods 
live,  which  are  of  royal  laborers  governing 
loyal  laborers;  who,  both  leading  rough 
lives,  establish  the  true  dynasties.  Con- 
clusively you  will  find  that  because  you  are 
king  of  a  nation,  it  does  not  follow  that 
you  are  to  gather  for  yourself  all  the  wealth 
of  that  nation;  neither,  because  you  are 
king  of  a  small  part  of  the  nation,  and 
lord  over  the  means  of  its  maintenance,— 
over  field,  or  mill,  or  mine,— are  you  to 
take  all  the  produce  of  that  piece  of  the 
foundation  of  national  existence  for  your- 
self. 

294 


TRAFFIC 

You  will  tell  me  I  need  not  preach  against 
these  things,  for  I  cannot  mend  them.  No, 
good  friends,  I  cannot;  but  you  can,  and 
you  will;  or  something  else  can  and  will. 
Even  good  things  have  no  abiding  power— 
and  shall  these  evil  things  persist  in  vic- 
torious evil?  All  history  shows,  on  the 
contrary,  that  to  be  the  exact  thing  they 
never  can  do.  Change  must  come;  but  it 
is  ours  to  determine  whether  change  of 
growth,  or  change  of  death.  Shall  the 
Parthenon  be  in  ruins  on  its  rock,  and 
Bolton  priory  in  its  meadow,  but  these 
mills  of  yours  be  the  consummation  of  the 
buildings  of  the  earth,  and  their  wheels  be 
as  the  wheels  of  eternity?  Think  you  that 
"  men  may  come,  and  men  may  go,"  but 
—mills— go  on  forever?  Not  so;  out  of 
these,  better  or  worse  shall  come;  and  it 
is  for  you  to  choose  which. 

I  know  that  none  of  this  wrong  is  done 
with  deliberate  purpose.  I  know,  on  the 
contrary,  that  you  wish  your  workmen 
well;  that  you  do  much  for  them,  and  that 
you  desire  to  do  more  for  them,  if  you  saw 
your  way  to  such  benevolence  safely.  I 
know  that  even  all  this  wrong  and  misery 
are  brought  about  by  a  warped  sense  of 
duty,  each  of  you  striving  to  do  his  best; 
but,  unhappily,  not  knowing  for  whom  this 
295 


THE  CROWN   OF   WILD   OLIVE 

best  should  be  done.  And  all  our  hearts 
have  been  betrayed  by  the  plausible  im- 
piety of  the  modern  economist,  telling  us 
that,  "To  do  the  best  for  ourselves,  is 
finally  to  do  the  best  for  others."  Friends, 
our  great  Master  said  not  so;  and  most  ab- 
solutely we  shall  find  this  world  is  not 
made  so.  Indeed,  to  do  the  best  for  others, 
is  finally  to  do  the  best  for  ourselves;  but 
it  will  not  do  to  have  our  eyes  fixed  on  that 
issue.  The  Pagans  had  got  beyond  that. 
Hear  what  a  Pagan  says  of  this  matter; 
hear  what  were,  perhaps,  the  last  written 
words  of  Plato,— if  not  the  last  actually 
written  (for  this  we  cannot  know),  yet 
assuredly  in  fact  and  power  his  parting 
words,— in  which,  endeavoring  to  give  full 
crowning  and  harmonious  close  to  all  his 
thoughts,  and  to  speak  the  sum  of  them 
by  the  imagined  sentence  of  the  Great 
Spirit,  his  strength  and  his  heart  fail  him, 
and  the  words  cease,  broken  off  forever. 

They  are  at  the  close  of  the  dialogue 
called  "Critias,"  in  which  he  describes, 
partly  from  real  tradition,  partly  in  ideal 
dream,  the  early  state  of  Athens;  and  the 
genesis,  and  order,  and  religion,  of  the  fa- 
bled isle  of  Atlantis;  in  which  genesis  he 
conceives  the  same  first  perfection  and 
final  degeneracy  of  man,  which  in  our  own 
296 


TRAFFIC 

Scriptural  tradition  is  expressed  by  saying 
that  the  Sons  of  God  intermarried  with  the 
daughters  of  men,  for  he  supposes  the  ear- 
liest race  to  have  been  indeed  the  children 
of  God;  and  to  have  corrupted  themselves, 
until  "their  spot  was  not  the  spot  of  his 
children."  And  this,  he  says,  was  the  end; 
that  indeed  "through  many  generations, 
so  long  as  the  God's  nature  in  them  yet 
was  full,  they  were  submissive  to  the  sa- 
cred laws,  and  carried  themselves  lovingly 
to  all  that  had  kindred  with  them  in  di- 
vineness;  for  their  uttermost  spirit  was 
faithful  and  true,  and  in  every  wise  great; 
so  that,  in  all  meekness  of  wisdom,  they  dealt 
with  each  other,  and  took  all  the  chances  of 
life;  and  despising  all  things  except  virtue, 
they  cared  little  what  happened  day  by  day, 
and  bore  lightly  the  burden  of  gold  and  of 
possessions;  for  they  saw  that,  if  only  their 
common  love  and  virtue  increased,  all  these 
things  would  be  increased  together  with 
them;  but  to  set  their  esteem  and  ardent 
pursuit  upon  material  possession  would  be 
to  lose  that  first,  and  their  virtue  and  affec- 
tion together  with  it.  And  by  such  rea- 
soning, and  what  of  the  divine  nature 
remained  in  them,  they  gained  all  this 
greatness  of  which  we  have  already  told; 
but  when  the  God's  part  of  them  faded  and 
297 


THE  CROWN   OF  WILD  OLIVE 

became  extinct,  being  mixed  again  and 
again,  and  effaced  by  the  prevalent  mortal- 
ity; and  the  human  nature  at  last  exceeded, 
they  then  became  unable  to  endure  the 
courses  of  fortune;  and  fell  into  shape- 
lessness  of  life,  and  baseness  in  the  sight 
of  him  who  could  see,  having  lost  every- 
thing that  was  fairest  of  their  honor;  while 
to  the  blind  hearts  which  could  not  discern 
the  true  life,  tending  to  happiness,  it  seemed 
that  they  were  then  chiefly  noble  and  happy, 
being  filled  with  all  iniquity  of  inordinate 
possession  and  power.  Whereupon,  the 
God  of  Gods,  whose  Kinghood  is  in  laws, 
beholding  a  once  just  nation  thus  cast  into 
misery,  and  desiring  to  lay  such  punish- 
ment upon  them  as  might  make  them  re- 
pent into  restraining,  gathered  together  all 
the  gods  into  his  dwelling-place,  which 
from  heaven's  center  overlooks  whatever 
has  part  in  creation;  and  having  assembled 
them,  he  said—" 

The  rest  is  silence.  Last  words  of  the 
chief  wisdom  of  the  heathen,  spoken  of  this 
idol  of  riches;  this  idol  of  yours;  this  golden 
image,  high  by  measureless  cubits,  set  up 
where  your  green  fields  of  England  are  fur- 
nace-burnt into  the  likeness  of  the  plain  of 
Dura:  this  idol,  forbidden  to  us,  first  of  all 
idols,  by  our  own  Master  and  faith;  forbid- 
298 


TRAFFIC 

den  to  us  also  by  every  human  lip  that  has 
ever,  in  any  age  or  people,  been  accounted 
of  as  able  to  speak  according  to  the  pur- 
poses of  God.  Continue  to  make  that  for- 
bidden deity  your  principal  one,  and  soon 
no  more  art,  no  more  science,  no  more 
pleasure  will  be  possible.  Catastrophe  will 
come;  or,  worse  than  catastrophe,  slow 
moldering  and  withering  into  Hades.  But 
if  you  can  fix  some  conception  of  a  true 
human  state  of  life  to  be  striven  for— life, 
good  for  all  men,  as  for  yourselves;  if  you 
can  determine  some  honest  and  simple 
order  of  existence;  following  those  trodden 
ways  of  wisdom,  which  are  pleasantness, 
and  seeking  her  quiet  and  withdrawn  paths, 
which  are  peace;1— then,  and  so  sanctify- 
ing wealth  into  "commonwealth,"  all  your 
art,  your  literature,  your  daily  labors,  your 
domestic  affection,  and  citizen's  duty,  will 
join  and  increase  into  one  magnificent  har- 
mony. You  will  know  then  how  to  build, 
well  enough;  you  will  build  with  stone  well, 
but  with  flesh  better;  temples  not  made 
with  hands,  but  riveted  of  hearts;  and  that 
kind  of  marble  crimson-veined,  is  indeed 
eternal. 

1  [I  imagine  the  Hebrew  chant  merely  intends  passionate 
repetition,  and  not  a  distinction  of  this  somewhat  fanciful 
kind ;  yet  we  may  profitably  make  it  in  reading  the  English.] 

299 


LECTURE  III 
WAR 


LECTURE 

III 
WAR 


Delivered  at  the  Royal  Military  Academy, 
Woolwich,  1865, 


YOUNG  SOLDIERS,-!  do  not  doubt 
but  that  many  of  you  came  unwill- 
ingly to-night,  and  many  in  merely 
contemptuous  curiosity,  to  hear  what  a 
writer  on  painting  could  possibly  say,  or 
would  venture  to  say,  respecting  your  great 
art  of  war.  You  may  well  think  within 
yourselves  that  a  painter  might,  perhaps 
without  immodesty,  lecture  younger  paint- 
ers upon  painting,  but  not  young  lawyers 
upon  law,  nor  young  physicians  upon  medi- 
cine—least of  all,  it  may  seem  to  you, 
young  warriors  upon  war.  And,  indeed, 
when  I  was  asked  to  address  you,  I  declined 
at  first,  and  declined  long;  for  I  felt  that 
you  would  not  be  interested  in  my  special 
business,  and  would  certainly  think  there 
was  small  need  for  me  to  come  to  teach 
you  yours.  Nay,  I  knew  that  there  ought 
to  be  no  such  need,  for  the  great  veteran 
303 


THE   CROWN   OF  WILD   OLIVE 

soldiers  of  England  are  now  men  every  way 
so  thoughtful,  so  noble,  and  so  good,  that 
no  other  teaching  than  their  knightly  ex- 
ample, and  their  few  words  of  grave  and 
tried  counsel,  should  be  either  necessary 
for  you,  or  even,  without  assurance  of  due 
modesty  in  the  offerer,  endured  by  you. 

But  being  asked,  not  once  nor  twice,  I 
have  not  ventured  persistently  to  refuse; 
and  I  will  try,  in  very  few  words,  to  lay 
before  you  some  reason  why  you  should 
accept  my  excuse,  and  hear  me  patiently. 
You  may  imagine  that  your  work  is  wholly 
foreign  to,  and  separate  from,  mine.  So  far 
from  that,  all  the  pure  and  noble  arts  of 
peace  are  founded  on  war;  no  great  art  ever 
yet  rose  on  earth,  but  among  a  nation  of 
soldiers.  There  is  no  art  among  a  shep- 
herd people,  if  it  remains  at  peace.  There 
is  no  art  among  an  agricultural  people,  if 
it  remains  at  peace.  Commerce  is  barely 
consistent  with  fine  art;  but  cannot  pro- 
duce it.  Manufacture  not  only  is  unable  to 
produce  it,  but  invariably  destroys  what- 
ever seeds  of  it  exist.  There  is  no  great 
art  possible  to  a  nation  but  that  which  is 
based  on  battle. 

Now,  though  I  hope  you  love  fighting  for 
its  own  sake,  you  must,  I  imagine,  be  sur- 
prised at  my  assertion  that  there  is  any 
304 


WAR 

such  good  fruit  of  fighting.  You  supposed, 
probably,  that  your  office  was  to  defend  the 
works  of  peace,  but  certainly  not  to  found 
them:  nay,  the  common  course  of  war,  you 
may  have  thought,  was  only  to  destroy 
them.  And  truly,  I,  who  tell  you  this  of 
the  use  of  war,  should  have  been  the  last 
of  men  to  tell  you  so,  had  I  trusted  my  own 
experience  only.  Hear  why:  I  have  given 
a  considerable  part  of  my  life  to  the  inves- 
tigation of  Venetian  painting;  and  the  re- 
sult of  that  inquiry  was  my  fixing  upon  one 
man  as  the  greatest  of  all  Venetians,  and 
therefore,  as  I  believed,  of  all  painters 
whatsoever.  I  formed  this  faith  (whether 
right  or  wrong  matters  at  present  nothing) 
in  the  supremacy  of  the  painter  Tintoret, 
under  a  roof  covered  with  his  pictures;  and 
of  those  pictures,  three  of  the  noblest  were 
then  in  the  form  of  shreds  of  ragged  can- 
vas, mixed  up  with  the  laths  of  the  roof, 
rent  through  by  three  Austrian  shells. 
Now,  it  is  not  every  lecturer  who  could  tell 
you  that  he  had  seen  three  of  his  favorite 
pictures  torn  to  rags  by  bomb-shells.  And 
after  such  a  sight,  it  is  not  every  lecturer 
who  would  tell  you  that,  nevertheless,  war 
was  the  foundation  of  all  great  art. 

Yet  the  conclusion  is  inevitable,  from  any 
careful  comparison  of  the  states  of  great 
20  305 


THE  CROWN   OF   WILD   OLIVE 

historic  races  at  different  periods.  Merely 
to  show  you  what  I  mean,  I  will  sketch  for 
you,  very  briefly,  the  broad  steps  of  the  ad- 
vance of  the  best  art  of  the  world.  The 
first  dawn  of  it  is  in  Egypt;  and  the  power 
of  it  is  founded  on  the  perpetual  contem- 
plation of  death,  and  of  future  judgment, 
by  the  mind  of  a  nation  of  which  the  ruling 
caste  were  priests,  and  the  second,  soldiers. 
The  greatest  works  produced  by  them  are 
sculptures  of  their  kings  going  out  to  bat- 
tle, or  receiving  the  homage  of  conquered 
armies.  And  you  must  remember,  also,  as 
one  of  the  great  keys  to  the  splendor  of  the 
Egyptian  nation,  that  the  priests  were  not 
occupied  in  theology  only.  Their  theology 
was  the  basis  of  practical  government  and 
law;  so  that  they  were  not  so  much  priests 
as  religious  judges;  the  office  of  Samuel, 
among  the  Jews,  being  as  nearly  as  possible 
correspondent  to  theirs. 

All  the  rudiments  of  art  then,  and  much 
more  than  the  rudiments  of  all  science, 
were  laid  first  by  this  great  warrior-nation, 
which  held  in  contempt  all  mechanical 
trades,  and  in  absolute  hatred  the  peaceful 
life  of  shepherds.  From  Egypt  art  passes 
directly  into  Greece,  where  all  poetry,  and 
all  painting,  are  nothing  else  than  the 
description,  praise,  or  dramatic  represen- 
306 


WAR 

tation  of  war,  or  of  the  exercises  which 
prepare  for  it,  in  their  connection  with 
offices  of  religion.  All  Greek  institutions 
had  first  respect  to  war;  and  their  concep- 
tion of  it,  as  one  necessary  office  of  all  hu- 
man and  divine  life,  is  expressed  simply  by 
the  images  of  their  guiding  gods.  Apollo 
is  the  god  of  all  wisdom  of  the  intellect; 
he  bears  the  arrow  and  the  bow,  before  he 
bears  the  lyre.  Again,  Athena  is  the  god- 
dess of  all  wisdom  in  conduct.  Yet  it  is  by 
the  helmet  and  the  shield,  oftener  than  by 
the  shuttle,  that  she  is  distinguished  from 
other  deities. 

There  were,  however,  two  great  differ- 
ences in  principle  between  the  Greek  and 
the  Egyptian  theories  of  policy.  In  Greece 
there  was  no  soldier  caste;  every  citizen 
was  necessarily  a  soldier.  And,  again, 
while  the  Greeks  rightly  despised  mechan- 
ical arts  as  much  as  the  Egyptians,  they 
did  not  make  the  fatal  mistake  of  despising 
agricultural  and  pastoral  life,  but  perfectly 
honored  both.  These  two  conditions  of 
truer  thought  raise  them  quite  into  the 
highest  rank  of  wise  manhood  that  has  yet 
been  reached;  for  all  our  great  arts,  and 
nearly  all  our  great  thoughts,  have  been 
borrowed  or  derived  from  them.  Take 
away  from  us  what  they  have  given,  and 
307 


THE   CROWN   OF   WILD   OLIVE 

we  hardly  can  imagine  how  low  the  mod- 
ern 1  European  would  stand. 

Now,  you  are  to  remember,  in  passing  to 
the  next  phase  of  history,  that  though  you 
must  have  war  to  produce  art,  you  must 
also  have  much  more  than  war;  namely,  an 
art  instinct  or  genius  in  the  people;  and 
that,  though  all  the  talent  for  painting  in 
the  world  won't  make  painters  of  you,  un- 
less you  have  a  gift  for  fighting  as  well, 
you  may  have  the  gift  for  fighting,  and 
none  for  painting.  Now,  in  the  next  great 
dynasty  of  soldiers,  the  art-instinct  is 
wholly  wanting.  I  have  not  yet  investi- 
gated the  Roman  character  enough  to  tell 
you  the  causes  of  this;  but  I  believe,  para- 
doxical as  it  may  seem  to  you,  that  how- 
ever truly  the  Roman  might  say  of  himself 
that  he  was  born  of  Mars,  and  suckled  by 
the  wolf,  he  was  nevertheless,  at  heart, 
more  of  a  farmer  than  a  soldier.  The  ex- 
ercises of  war  were  with  him  practical,  not 
poetical;  his  poetry  was  in  domestic  life 
only,  and  the  object  of  battle,  "pads  im- 
ponere  morem."  And  the  arts  are  extin- 
guished in  his  hands,  and  do  not  rise  again, 
until,  with  Gothic  chivalry,  there  comes 

i  [The  modern,  observe,  because  we  have  lost  all  inheritance 
from.  Florence  or  Venice,  and  are  now  pensioners  upon  the 
Greeks  only,] 

308 


WAR 

back  into  the  mind  of  Europe  a  passionate 
delight  in  war  itself,  for  the  sake  of  war. 
And  then,  with  the  romantic  knighthood 
which  can  imagine  no  other  noble  employ- 
ment,—under  the  fighting  kings  of  France, 
England,  and  Spain;  and  under  the  fighting 
dukeships  and  citizenships  of  Italy,  art  is 
born  again,  and  rises  to  her  height  in  the 
great  valleys  of  Lombardy  and  Tuscany, 
through  which  there  flows  not  a  single 
stream,  from  all  their  Alps  or  Apennines, 
that  did  not  once  run  dark  red  from  bat- 
tle; and  it  reaches  its  culminating  glory  in 
the  city  which  gave  to  history  the  most  in- 
tense type  of  soldiership  yet  seen  among 
men;— the  city  whose  armies  were  led  in 
their  assault  by  their  king,1  led  through  it 
to  victory  by  their  king,  and  so  led,  though 
that  king  of  theirs  was  blind,  and  in  the  ex- 
tremity of  his  age. 

And  from  this  time  forward,  as  peace  is 
established  or  extended  in  Europe,  the  arts 
decline.  They  reach  an  unparalleled  pitch 
of  costliness,  but  lose  their  life,  enlist  them- 
selves at  last  on  the  side  of  luxury  and 
various  corruption,  and,  among  wholly 
tranquil  nations,  wither  utterly  away;  re- 
maining only  in  partial  practice  among 

i  [Henry  Dandolo :  the  king  of  Bohemia  at  Crecy  is  very  grand, 
too,  and  in  the  issue,  his  knighthood  is,  to  us,  more  memorable.] 

309 


THE   CROWN   OF   WILD   OLIVE 

races  who,  like  the  French  and  us,  have 
still  the  minds,  though  we  cannot  all  live 
the  lives,  of  soldiers. 

"  It  may  be  so,"  I  can  suppose  that  a  phi- 
lanthropist might  exclaim.  "Perish  then 
the  arts,  if  they  can  flourish  only  at  such  a 
cost.  What  worth  is  there  in  toys  of  can- 
vas and  stone,  if  compared  to  the  joy  and 
peace  of  artless  domestic  life?  "  and  the  an- 
swer is— truly,  in  themselves,  none.  But 
as  expressions  of  the  highest  state  of  the 
human  spirit,  their  worth  is  infinite.  As 
results  they  may  be  worthless,  but,  as 
signs,  they  are  above  price.  For  it  is 
an  assured  truth  that,  whenever  the  fac- 
ulties of  men  are  at  their  fullness,  they 
must  express  themselves  by  art;  and  to 
say  that  a  state  is  without  such  expres- 
sion, is  to  say  that  it  is  sunk  from  its 
proper  level  of  manly  nature.  So  that, 
when  I  tell  you  that  war  is  the  foundation 
of  all  the  arts,  I  mean  also  that  it  is  the 
foundation  of  all  the  high  virtues  and  fac- 
ulties of  men. 

It  is  very  strange  to  me  to  discover  this; 
and  very  dreadful— but  I  saw  it  to  be  quite 
an  undeniable  fact.  The  common  notion 
that  peace  and  the  virtues  of  civil  life 
flourished  together,  I  found  to  be  wholly 
untenable.  Peace  and  the  vices  of  civil  life 
310 


WAR 

only  flourish  together.  We  talk  of  peace 
and  learning,  and  of  peace  and  plenty,  and 
of  peace  and  civilization;  but  I  found  that 
those  were  not  the  words  which  the  Muse 
of  History  coupled  together:  that,  on  her 
lips,  the  words  were— peace,  and  sensuality 
—peace,  and  selfishness— peace,  and  death. 
I  found,  in  brief,  that  all  great  nations 
learned  their  truth  of  word,  and  strength 
of  thought,  in  war;  that  they  were  nour- 
ished in  war,  and  wasted  by  peace;  taught 
by  war,  and  deceived  by  peace;  trained  by 
war,  and  betrayed  by  peace;— in  a  word, 
that  they  were  born  in  war,  and  expired  in 
peace. 

Yet  now  note  carefully,  in  the  second 
place,  it  is  not  all  war  of  which  this  can  be 
said— nor  all  dragon's  teeth  which,  sown, 
will  start  up  into  men.  It  is  not  the  rage 
of  a  barbarian  wolf-flock,  as  under  Genseric 
or  Suwarrow;  nor  the  habitual  restlessness 
and  rapine  of  mountaineers,  as  on  the  old 
borders  of  Scotland;  nor  the  occasional 
struggle  of  a  strong  peaceful  nation  for  its 
life,  as  in  the  wars  of  the  Swiss  with  Aus- 
tria; nor  the  contest  of  merely  ambitious 
nations  for  extent  of  power,  as  in  the  wars 
of  France  under  Napoleon,  or  the  just  ter- 
minated war  in  America.  None  of  these 
forms  of  war  build  anything  but  tombs. 
311 


THE  CROWN   OF  WILD  OLIVE 

But  the  creative,  or  foundational,  war  is  that 
in  which  the  natural  restlessness  and  love  of 
contest  among  men  are  disciplined,  by  con- 
sent, into  modesof  beautiful— though  it  may 
be  fatal— play;  in  which  the  natural  ambi- 
tion and  love  of  power  of  men  are  disciplined 
into  the  aggressive  conquest  of  surround- 
ing evil :  and  in  which  the  natural  instincts 
of  self-defense  are  sanctified  by  the  noble- 
ness of  the  institutions,  and  purity  of  the 
households  which  they  are  appointed  to  de- 
fend. To  such  war  as  this  all  men  are  born ; 
in  such  war  as  this  any  man  may  happily 
die;  and  out  of  such  war  as  this  have  arisen, 
throughout  the  extent  of  past  ages,  all  the 
highest  sanctities  and  virtues  of  humanity. 

I  shall  therefore  divide  the  war  of  which 
I  would  speak  to  you  into  three  heads: 
war  for  exercise  or  play;  war  for  domin- 
ion; and  war  for  defense. 

I.  And  first,  of  war  for  exercise  or  play; 
I  speak  of  it  primarily  in  this  light,  be- 
cause, through  all  past  history,  manly  war 
has  been  more  an  exercise  than  anything 
else,  among  the  classes  who  cause  and  pro- 
claim it  It  is  not  a  game  to  the  conscript, 
or  the  pressed  sailor;  but  neither  of  these 
are  the  causers  of  it.  To  the  governor  who 
determines  that  war  shall  be,  and  to  the 
youths  who  voluntarily  adopt  it  as  their 
312 


WAR 

profession,  it  has  always  been  a  grand  pas- 
time; and  chiefly  pursued  because  they  had 
nothing  else  to  do.  And  this  is  true  with- 
out any  exception.  No  king  whose  mind 
was  fully  occupied  with  the  development  of 
the  inner  resources  of  his  kingdom,  or  with 
any  other  sufficing  subject  of  thought,  ever 
entered  into  war  but  on  compulsion.  No 
youth  who  was  earnestly  busy  with  any 
peaceful  subject  of  study,  or  set  on  any 
serviceable  course  of  action,  ever  volunta- 
rily became  a  soldier.  Occupy  him,  early 
and  wisely,  in  agriculture  or  business,  in 
science  or  in  literature,  and  he  will  never 
think  of  war  otherwise  than  as  a  calamity.1 
But  leave  him  idle;  and,  the  more  brave 
and  active  and  capable  he  is  by  nature,  the 
more  he  will  thirst  for  some  appointed  field 
for  action;  and  find,  in  the  passion  and 
peril  of  battle,  the  only  satisfying  fulfil- 
ment of  his  unoccupied  being.  And  from 
the  earliest  incipient  civilization  until  now, 
the  population  of  the  earth  divides  itself, 
when  you  look  at  it  widely,  into  two  races, 
one  of  workers,  and  the  other  of  players : 
one  tilling  the  ground,  manufacturing, 
building,  and  otherwise  providing  for  the 

1  [A  wholesome  calamity,  observe;  not  to  be  shrunk  from, 
though  not  to  be  provoked.  But  see  the  opening  of  the 
notes  on  Prussia,  §  161,] 

313 


THE  CROWN   OF  WILD  OLIVE 

necessities  of  life;  the  other  part  proudly 
idle,  and  continually,  therefore,  needing 
recreation,  in  which  they  use  the  produc- 
tive and  laborious  orders  partly  as  their 
cattle,  and  partly  as  their  puppets  or  pieces 
in  the  game  of  death. 

:Now,  remember,  whatever  virtue  or 
goodliness  there  may  be  in  this  game  of 
war,  rightly  played,  there  is  none  when  you 
thus  play  it  with  a  multitude  of  human 
pawns. 

If  you,  the  gentlemen  of  this  or  any  other 
kingdom,  choose  to  make  your  pastime  of 
contest,  do  so,  and  welcome;  but  set  not 
up  these  unhappy  peasant-pieces  upon  the 
checker  of  forest  and  field.  If  the  wager  is 
to  be  of  death,  lay  it  on  your  own  heads, 
not  theirs.  A  goodly  struggle  in  the  Olym- 
pic dust,  though  it  be  the  dust  of  the  grave, 
the  gods  will  look  upon,  and  be  with  you  in; 
but  they  will  not  be  with  you  if  you  sit  on 
the  sides  of  the  amphitheater,  whose  steps 
are  the  mountains  of  earth,  whose  arena 
its  valleys,  to  urge  your  peasant  mil- 
lions into  gladiatorial  war.  You  also,  you 


1  [I  dislike  more  and  more  every  day  the  declamatory  forms 
in  which  what  I  most  desired  to  make  impressive  was  ar- 
ranged for  oral  delivery ;  but  these  two  paragraphs,  97  and  98 
[BO  numbered  in  the  original  edition],  sacrifice  no  accuracy 
in  their  endeavor  to  be  pompous,  and  are  among  the  most 
importantly  true  passages  I  have  ever  written.] 

314 


WAR 

tender  and  delicate  women,  for  whom,  and 
by  whose  command,  all  true  battle  has 
been,  and  must  ever  be;  you  would  perhaps 
shrink  now,  though  you  need  not,  from  the 
thought  of  sitting  as  queens  above  set  lists 
where  the  jousting  game  might  be  mortal. 
How  much  more,  then,  ought  you  to  shrink 
from  the  thought  of  sitting  above  a  theater 
pit  in  which  even  a  few  condemned  slaves 
were  slaying  each  other  only  for  your  de- 
light! And  do  you  not  shrink  from  the  fact 
of  sitting  above  a  theater  pit  where— not 
condemned  slaves,  but  the  best  and  brav- 
est of  the  poor  sons  of  your  people,  slay 
each  other— not  man  to  man,  as  the 
coupled  gladiators,  but  race  to  race,  in  duel 
of  generations?  You  would  tell  me,  per- 
haps, that  you  do  not  sit  to  see  this;  and  it 
is,  indeed,  true  that  the  women  of  Europe 
—those  who  have  no  heart-interest  of  their 
own  at  peril  in  the  contest— draw  the  cur- 
tains of  their  boxes,  and  muffle  the  open- 
ings; so  that  from  the  pit  of  the  circus  of 
slaughter  there  may  reach  them  only  at 
intervals  a  half -heard  cry,  and  a  murmur  as 
of  the  wind's  sighing,  when  myriads  of 
souls  expire.  They  shut  out  the  death- 
cries,  and  are  happy,  and  talk  wittily  among 
themselves.  That  is  the  utter,  literal  fact 
of  what  our  ladies  do  in  their  pleasant  lives. 
315 


THE   CROWN   OF   WILD   OLIVE 

Nay,  you  might  answer,  speaking  with 
them— "We  do  not  let  these  wars  come  to 
pass  for  our  play,  nor  by  our  carelessness; 
we  cannot  help  them.  How  can  any  final 
quarrel  of  nations  be  settled  otherwise  than 
by  war?" 

I  cannot  now  delay  to  tell  you  how  politi- 
cal quarrels  might  be  otherwise  settled. 
But  grant  that  they  cannot.  Grant  that  no 
law  of  reason  can  be  understood  by  na- 
tions; no  law  of  justice  submitted  to  by 
them;  and  that,  while  questions  of  a  few 
acres,  and  of  petty  cash,  can  be  determined 
by  truth  and  equity,  the  questions  which 
are  to  issue  in  the  perishing  or  saving  of 
kingdoms  can  be  determined  only  by  the 
truth  of  the  sword,  and  the  equity  of  the 
rifle.  Grant  this,  and  even  then  judge  if 
it  will  always  be  necessary  for  you  to  put 
your  quarrel  into  the  hearts  of  your  poor, 
and  sign  your  treaties  with  peasants'  blood. 
You  would  be  ashamed  to  do  this  in  your 
own  private  position  and  power.  Why 
should  you  not  be  ashamed  also  to  do  it  in 
public  place  and  power?  If  you  quarrel 
with  your  neighbor,  and  the  quarrel  be  in- 
determinable by  law,  and  mortal,  you  and 
he  do  not  send  your  footmen  to  Battersea 
fields  to  fight  it  out;  nor  do  you  set  fire  to 
his  tenants'  cottages,  nor  spoil  their  goods. 
316 


WAR 

You  fight  out  your  quarrel  yourselves,  and 
at  your  own  danger,  if  at  all.  And  you  do 
not  think  it  materially  affects  the  arbitra- 
ment that  one  of  you  has  a  larger  house- 
hold than  the  other;  so  that,  if  the  servants 
or  tenants  were  brought  into  the  field  with 
their  masters,  the  issue  of  the  contest  could 
not  be  doubtful?  You  either  refuse  the 
private  duel,  or  you  practise  it  under  laws 
of  honor,  not  of  physical  force;  that  so  it 
may  be,  in  a  manner,  justly  concluded. 
Now  the  just  or  unjust  conclusion  of  the  pri- 
vate feud  is  of  little  moment,  while  the  just 
or  unjust  conclusion  of  the  public  feud  is  of 
eternal  moment:  and  yet,  in  this  public 
quarrel,  you  take  your  servants'  sons  from 
their  arms  to  fight  for  it,  and  your  servants' 
food  from  their  lips  to  support  it;  and 
the  black  seals  on  the  parchment  of  your 
treaties  of  peace  are  the  deserted  hearth, 
and  the  fruitless  field. 

There  is  a  ghastly  ludicrousness  in  this, 
as  there  is  mostly  in  these  wide  and  uni- 
versal crimes.  Hear  the  statement  of  the 
very  fact  of  it  in  the  most  literal  words  of 
the  greatest  of  our  English  thinkers: 

"What,  speaking  in  quite  unofficial  lan- 
guage, is  the  net  purport  and  upshot  of 
war?  To  my  own  knowledge,  for  example, 
there  dwell  and  toil,  in  the  British  village 
317 


THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE 

of  Dumdrudge,  usually  some  five  hundred 
souls.  Prom  these,  by  certain  *  natural 
enemies'  of  the  French  there  are  succes- 
sively selected,  during  the  French  war,  say 
thirty  able-bodied  men.  Dumdrudge,  at 
her  own  expense,  has  suckled  and  nursed 
them;  she  has,  not  without  difficulty  and 
sorrow,  fed  them  up  to  manhood,  and  even 
trained  them  to  crafts,  so  that  one  can 
weave,  another  build,  another  hammer,  and 
the  weakest  can  stand  under  thirty  stone 
avoirdupois.  Nevertheless,  amid  much 
weeping  and  swearing,  they  are  selected; 
all  dressed  in  red;  and  shipped  away,  at  the 
public  charges,  some  two  thousand  miles, 
or  say  only  to  the  south  of  Spain;  and  fed 
there  till  wanted. 

"  And  now  to  that  same  spot  in  the  south 
of  Spain  are  thirty  similar  French  artisans, 
from  a  French  Dumdrudge,  in  like  manner 
wending;  till  at  length,  after  infinite  effort, 
the  two  parties  come  into  actual  juxtaposi- 
tion; and  Thirty  stands  fronting  Thirty, 
each  with  a  gun  in  his  hand. 

"Straightway  the  word  'Fire!'  is  given, 
and  they  blow  the  souls  out  of  one  another, 
and  in  place  of  sixty  brisk,  useful  craftsmen, 
the  world  has  sixty  dead  carcasses,  which  it 
must  bury,  and  anon  shed  tears  for.  Had 
these  men  any  quarrel?  Busy  as  the  devil 
318 


WAR 

is,  not  the  smallest !  They  lived  far  enough 
apart;  were  the  entirest  strangers;  nay,  in 
so  wide  a  universe,  there  was  even,  uncon- 
sciously, by  commerce,  some  mutual  help- 
fulness between  them.  How  then?  Sim- 
pleton! their  governors  had  fallen  out;  and 
instead  of  shooting  one  another,  had  the 
cunning  to  make  these  poor  blockheads 
shoot."— Sar  tor  Resartus. 

Positively,  then,  gentlemen,  the  game  of 
battle  must  not,  and  shall  not,  ultimately 
be  played  this  way.  But  should  it  be  played 
any  way?  Should  it,  if  not  by  your  ser- 
vants, be  practised  by  yourselves?  I  think, 
yes.  Both  history  and  human  instinct  seem 
alike  to  say,  yes.  All  healthy  men  like 
fighting,  and  like  the  sense  of  danger;  all 
brave  women  like  to  hear  of  their  fighting, 
and  of  their  facing  danger.  This  is  a  fixed 
instinct  in  the  fine  race  of  them;  and  I  can- 
not help  fancying  that  fair  fight  is  the  best 
play  for  them;  and  that  a  tournament  was 
a  better  game  than  a  steeplechase.  The 
time  may  perhaps  come,  in  France,  as  well 
as  here,  for  universal  hurdle-races  and 
cricketing:  but  I  do  not  think  universal 
cricket  will  bring  out  the  best  qualities  of 
the  nobles  of  either  country.  I  use,  in  such 
question,  the  test  which  I  have  adopted,  of 
the  connection  of  war  with  other  arts;  and 
319 


THE  CROWN   OF  WILD   OLIVE 

I  reflect  how,  as  a  sculptor,  I  should  feel  if 
I  were  asked  to  design  a  monument  for  a 
dead  knight,  in  Westminster  Abbey,  with  a 
carving  of  a  bat  at  one  end,  and  a  ball  at 
the  other.  It  may  be  the  remains  in  me 
only  of  savage  Gothic  prejudice;  but  I  had 
rather  carve  it  with  a  shield  at  one  end,  and 
a  sword  at  the  other.  And  this,  observe, 
with  no  reference  whatever  to  any  story  of 
duty  done,  or  cause  defended.  Assume 
the  knight  merely  to  have  ridden  out  occa- 
sionally to  fight  his  neighbor  for  exercise; 
assume  him  even  a  soldier  of  fortune,  and 
to  have  gained  his  bread,  and  filled  his 
purse,  at  the  sword's  point.  Still,  I  feel  as 
if  it  were,  somehow,  grander  and  worthier 
in  him  to  have  made  his  bread  by  sword- 
play  than  any  other  play;  I  had  rather  he 
had  made  it  by  thrusting  than  by  batting; 
—much  rather  than  by  betting;  much 
rather  that  he  should  ride  war-horses  than 
back  race-horses;  and— I  say  it  sternly  and 
deliberately— much  rather  would  I  have  him 
slay  his  neighbor  than  cheat  him. 

But  remember,  so  far  as  this  may  be  true, 
the  game  of  war  is  only  that  in  which  the 
full  personal  power  of  the  human  creature 
is  brought  out  in  management  of  its  weap- 
ons. And  this  for  three  reasons: 

First,  the  great  justification  of  this  game 
320 


WAR 

is  that  it  truly,  when  well  played,  deter- 
mines who  is  the  best  man;— who  is  the 
highest  bred,  the  most  self-denying,  the 
most  fearless,  the  coolest  of  nerve,  the 
swiftest  of  eye  and  hand.  You  cannot  test 
these  qualities  wholly,  unless  there  is  a 
clear  possibility  of  the  struggle's  ending  in 
death.  It  is  only  in  the  fronting  of  that 
condition  that  the  full  trial  of  the  man, 
soul  and  body,  comes  out.  You  may  go  to 
your  game  of  wickets,  or  of  hurdles,  or  of 
cards,  and  any  knavery  that  is  in  you  may 
stay  unchallenged  all  the  while.  But  if  the 
play  may  be  ended  at  any  moment  by  a 
lance-thrust,  a  man  will  probably  make  up 
his  accounts  a  little  before  he  enters  it. 
Whatever  is  rotten  and  evil  in  him  will 
weaken  his  hand  more  in  holding  a  sword- 
hilt  than  in  balancing  a  billiard-cue;  and,  on 
the  whole,  the  habit  of  living  lightly  hearted, 
in  daily  presence  of  death,  always  has  had, 
and  must  have,  power  both  in  the  making 
and  testing  of  honest  men.  But  for  the 
final  testing,  observe,  you  must  make  the 
issue  of  battle  strictly  dependent  on  fine- 
ness of  frame  and  firmness  of  hand.  You 
must  not  make  it  the  question,  which  of  the 
combatants  has  the  longest  gun,  or  which 
has  got  behind  the  biggest  tree,  or  which 
has  the  wind  in  his  face,  or  which  has  gun- 
21  321 


THE  CROWN   OF  WILD   OLIVE 

powder  made  by  the  best  chemists,  or  iron 
smelted  with  the  best  coal,  or  the  angriest 
mob  at  his  back.  Decide  your  battle, 
whether  of  nations  or  individuals,  on  those 
terms,— and  you  have  only  multiplied  con- 
fusion, and  added  slaughter  to  iniquity. 
But  decide  your  battle  by  pure  trial  which 
has  the  strongest  arm,  and  steadiest  heart, 
—and  you  have  gone  far  to  decide  a  great 
many  matters  besides,  and  to  decide  them 
rightly.1 

And  the  other  reasons  for  this  mode  of 
decision  of  cause,  are  the  diminution  both 
of  the  material  destructiveness,  or  cost,  and 
of  the  physical  distress  of  war.  For  you 
must  not  think  that  in  speaking  to  you  in 
this  (as  you  may  imagine)  fantastic  praise 
of  battle,  I  have  overlooked  the  conditions 
weighing  against  me.  I  pray  all  of  you, 
who  have  not  read,  to  read  with  the  most 
earnest  attention  Mr.  Helps'  two  essays,  on 
War,  and  Government,  in  the  first  volume 
of  the  last  series  of  "Friends  in  Council." 
Everything  that  can  be  urged  against  war 
is  there  simply,  exhaustively,  and  most 
graphically  stated.  And  all,  there  urged,  is 
true.  But  the  two  great  counts  of  evil  al- 
leged against  war  by  that  most  thoughtful 
writer,  hold  only  against  modern  war.  If 

1  Compare  "  Fors  Clavigera,"  Letter  XIV.  p.  9. 
322 


WAR 

you  have  to  take  away  masses  of  men  from 
all  industrial  employment,— to  feed  them 
by  the  labor  of  others,— to  provide  them 
with  destructive  machines,  varied  daily  in 
national  rivalship  of  inventive  cost;  if  you 
have  to  ravage  the  country  which  you  at- 
tack,—to  destroy,  for  a  score  of  future 
years,  its  roads,  its  woods,  its  cities,  and  its 
harbors;— and  if,  finally,  having  brought 
masses  of  men,  counted  by  hundreds  of 
thousands,  face  to  face,  you  tear  those 
masses  to  pieces  with  jagged  shot,  and  leave 
the  living  creatures,  countlessly  beyond 
all  help  of  surgery,  to  starve  and  parch, 
through  days  of  torture,  down  into  clots  of 
clay— what  book  of  accounts  shall  record 
the  cost  of  your  work;— what  book  of  judg- 
ment sentence  the  guilt  of  it? 

That,  I  say,  is  modern  war,— scientific 
war,— chemical  and  mechanic  war,— how 
much  worse  than  the  savage's  poisoned 
arrow !  And  yet  you  will  tell  me,  perhaps, 
that  any  other  war  than  this  is  impossible 
now.  It  may  be  so;  the  progress  of  science 
cannot,  perhaps,  be  otherwise  registered 
than  by  new  facilities  of  destruction;  and 
the  brotherly  love  of  our  enlarging  Chris- 
tianity be  only  proved  by  multiplication  of 
murder.  Yet  hear,  for  a  moment,  what 
war  was,  in  Pagan  and  ignorant  days;— 
323 


THE  CROWN   OF  WILD   OLIVE 

what  war  might  yet  be,  if  we  could  extin- 
guish our  science  in  darkness,  and  join  the 
heathen's  practice  to  the  Christian's  creed. 
I  read  you  this  from  a  book  which  probably 
most  of  you  know  well,  and  all  ought  to 
know— Miiller's  "Dorians";1— but  I  have 
put  the  points  I  wish  you  to  remember  in 
closer  connection  than  in  his  text. 

"  The  chief  characteristic  of  the  warriors 
of  Sparta  was  great  composure  and  a  sub- 
dued strength;  the  violence  (Moaa)  of  Aris- 
todemus  and  Isadas  being  considered  as 
deserving  rather  of  blame  than  praise;  and 
these  qualities  in  general  distinguished 
the  Greeks  from  the  northern  Barbarians, 
whose  boldness  always  consisted  in  noise 
and  tumult.  For  the  same  reason  the  Spar- 
tans sacrificed  to  the  Muses  before  an  action; 
these  goddesses  being  expected  to  produce 
regularity  and  order  in  battle;  as  they  sac- 
rificed on  the  same  occasion  in  Crete  to  the 
god  of  love,  as  the  confirmer  of  mutual  es- 
teem and  shame.  Every  man  put  on  a 
crown,  when  the  band  of  flute-players  gave 
the  signal  for  attack;  all  the  shields  of  the 
line  glittered  with  their  high  polish,  and 
mingled  their  splendor  with  the  dark  red  of 
the  purple  mantles,  which  were  meant  both 
to  adorn  the  combatant,  and  to  conceal  the 

I  Vol.  ii.  Chap.  12,  |  9. 

324 


WAR 

blood  of  the  wounded;  to  fall  well  and  de- 
corously being  an  incentive  the  more  to  the 
most  heroic  valor.  The  conduct  of  the 
Spartans  in  battle  denotes  a  high  and  noble 
disposition,  which  rejected  all  the  extremes 
of  brutal  rage.  The  pursuit  of  the  enemy 
ceased  when  the  victory  was  completed;  and 
after  the  signal  for  retreat  had  been  given, 
all  hostilities  ceased.  The  spoiling  of  arms, 
at  least  during  the  battle,  was  also  inter- 
dicted; and  the  consecration  of  the  spoils  of 
slain  enemies  to  the  gods,  as,  in  general,  all 
rejoicings  for  victory,  were  considered  as 
ill-omened." 

Such  was  the  war  of  the  greatest  soldiers 
who  prayed  to  heathen  gods.  What  Chris- 
tian war  is,  preached  by  Christian  minis- 
ters, let  any  one  tell  you,  who  saw  the 
sacred  crowning,  and  heard  the  sacred  flute- 
playing,  and  was  inspired  and  sanctified  by 
the  divinely  measured  and  musical  lan- 
guage, of  any  North  American  regiment 
preparing  for  its  charge.  And  what  is  the 
relative  cost  of  life  in  Pagan  and  Christian 
wars,  let  this  one  fact  tell  you;— the  Spar- 
tans won  the  decisive  battle  of  Corinth  with 
the  loss  of  eight  men;  the  victors  at  inde- 
cisive Gettysburg  confess  to  the  loss  of 
30,000. 

II.  I  pass  now  to  our  second  order  of 
325 


THE  CROWN  OP  WILD  OLIVE 

war,  the  commonest  among  men,  that  un- 
dertaken in  desire  of  dominion.  And  let  me 
ask  you  to  think  for  a  few  moments  what 
the  real  meaning  of  this  desire  of  dominion 
is— first  in  the  minds  of  kings— then  in  that 
of  nations. 

Now,  mind  you  this  first,— that  I  speak 
either  about  kings,  or  masses  of  men,  with 
a  fixed  conviction  that  human  nature  is  a 
noble  and  beautiful  thing;  not  a  foul  nor  a 
base  thing.  All  the  sin  of  men  I  esteem  as 
their  disease,  not  their  nature;  as  a  folly 
which  may  be  prevented,  not  a  necessity 
which  must  be  accepted.  And  my  wonder, 
even  when  things  are  at  their  worst,  is  al- 
ways at  the  height  which  this  human  na- 
ture can  attain.  Thinking  it  high,  I  find  it 
always  a  higher  thing  than  I  thought  it; 
while  those  who  think  it  low,  find  it,  and 
will  find  it,  always,  lower  than  they  thought 
it:  the  fact  being,  that  it  is  infinite,  and 
capable  of  infinite  height  and  infinite  fall; 
but  the  nature  of  it— and  here  is  the  faith 
which  I  would  have  you  hold  with  me— the 
nature  of  it  is  in  the  nobleness,  not  in  the 
catastrophe. 

Take   the    faith  in    its  utmost  terms. 

When  the  captain  of  the  London  shook 

hands  with  his  mate,  saying,  "  God  speed 

you!    I  will  go  down  with  my  passengers," 

326 


WAR 

that  I  believe  to  be  "human  nature."  He 
does  not  do  it  from  any  religious  motive,— 
from  any  hope  of  reward,  or  any  fear  of 
punishment;  he  does  it  because  he  is  a  man. 
But  when  a  mother,  living  among  the  fair 
fields  of  merry  England,  gives  her  two-year- 
old  child  to  be  suffocated  under  a  mattress 
in  her  inner  room,  while  the  said  mother 
waits  and  talks  outside,  that  I  believe  to  be 
not  human  nature.  You  have  the  two  ex- 
tremes there,  shortly.  And  you,  men,  and 
mothers,  who  are  here  face  to  face  with  me 
to-night,  I  call  upon  you  to  say  which  of 
these  is  human,  and  which  inhuman,— 
which  "natural"  and  which  "unnatural." 
Choose  your  creed  at  once,  I  beseech  you: 
—choose  it  with  unshaken  choice,— choose 
it  forever.  Will  you  take,  for  foundation  of 
act  and  hope,  the  faith  that  this  man  was 
such  as  God  made  him,  or  that  this  woman 
was  such  as  God  made  her?  Which  of  them 
has  failed  from  their  nature,— from  their 
present,  possible,  actual  nature;— not  their 
nature  of  long  ago,  but  their  nature  of  now? 
Which  has  betrayed  it— falsified  it?  Did 
the  guardian  who  died  in  his  trust  die  in- 
humanly, and  as  a  fool;  and  did  the  mur- 
deress of  her  child  fulfil  the  law  of  her 
being?  Choose,  I  say;  infinitude  of  choices 
hang  upon  this.  You  have  had  false 
327 


THE   CROWN   OF   WILD   OLIVE 

prophets  among  you,— for  centuries  you 
have  had  them,— solemnly  warned  against 
them  though  you  were;  false  prophets,  who 
have  told  you  that  all  men  are  nothing  but 
fiends  or  wolves,  half  beast,  half  devil.  Be- 
lieve that,  and  indeed  you  may  sink  to  that. 
But  refuse  that,  and  have  faith  that  God 
"made  you  upright,"  though  you  have 
sought  out  many  inventions;  so,  you  will 
strive  daily  to  become  more  what  your 
Maker  meant  and  means  you  to  be,  and 
daily  gives  you  also  the  power  to  be,— and 
you  will  cling  more  and  more  to  the  noble- 
ness and  virtue  that  is  in  you,  saying,  "  My 
righteousness  I  hold  fast,  and  will  not  let  it 
go." 

I  have  put  this  to  you  as  a  choice,  as  if 
you  might  hold  either  of  these  creeds  you 
liked  best.  But  there  is  in  reality  no  choice 
for  you;  the  facts  being  quite  easily  ascer- 
tainable.  You  have  no  business  to  think 
about  this  matter,  or  to  choose  in  it.  The 
broad  fact  is,  that  a  human  creature  of  the 
highest  race,  and  most  perfect  as  a  human 
thing,  is  invariably  both  kind  and  true;  and 
that  as  you  lower  the  race,  you  get  cruelty 
and  falseness  as  you  get  deformity:  and  this 
so  steadily  and  assuredly  that  the  two  great 
words  which,  in  their  first  use,  meant  only 
perfection  of  race,  have  come,  by  conse- 
328 


WAR 

quence  of  the  invariable  connection  of  vir- 
tue with  the  fine  human  nature,  both  to 
signify  benevolence  of  disposition.  The 
word  "  generous,"  and  the  word  "  gentle," 
both,  in  their  origin,  meant  only  "of  pure 
race,"  but  because  charity  and  tenderness 
are  inseparable  from  this  purity  of  blood, 
the  words  which  once  stood  only  for  pride, 
now  stand  as  synonyms  for  virtue. 

Now,  this  being  the  true  power  of  our 
inherent  humanity,  and  seeing  that  all  the 
aim  of  education  should  be  to  develop  this, 
—and  seeing  also  what  magnificent  self- 
sacrifice  the  higher  classes  of  men  are  ca- 
pable of,  for  any  cause  that  they  understand 
or  feel,— it  is  wholly  inconceivable  to  me 
how  well-educated  princes,  who  ought  to  be 
of  all  gentlemen  the  gentlest,  and  of  all 
nobles  the  most  generous,  and  whose  title 
of  royalty  means  only  their  function  of 
doing  every  man  "right"— how  these,  I 
say,  throughout  history,  should  so  rarely 
pronounce  themselves  on  the  side  of  the 
poor,  and  of  justice,  but  continually  main- 
tain themselves  and  their  own  interests  by 
oppression  of  the  poor,  and  by  wresting  of 
justice;  and  how  this  should  be  accepted  as 
so  natural  that  the  word  "loyalty,"  which 
means  faithfulness  to  law,  is  used  as  if  it 
were  only  the  duty  of  a  people  to  be  loyal 
329 


THE  CROWN   OF  WILD   OLIVE 

to  their  king,  and  not  the  duty  of  a  king  to 
be  infinitely  more  loyal  to  his  people.  How 
comes  it  to  pass  that  a  captain  will  die  with 
his  passengers,  and  lean  over  the  gunwale 
to  give  the  parting  boat  its  course;  but  that 
a  king  will  not  usually  die  with,  much  less 
for,  his  passengers— thinks  it  rather  incum- 
bent on  his  passengers,  in  any  number,  to 
die  for  him  ? 

Think,  I  beseech  you,  of  the  wonder  of 
this.  The  sea-captain,  not  captain  by 
divine  right,  but  only  by  company's  appoint- 
ment; not  a  man  of  royal  descent,  but  only 
a  plebeian  who  can  steer;  not  with  the  eyes 
of  the  world  upon  him,  but  with  feeble 
chance,  depending  on  one  poor  boat,  of  his 
name  being  ever  heard  above  the  wash  of 
the  fatal  waves;  not  with  the  cause  of  a  na- 
tion resting  on  his  act,  but  helpless  to  save 
so  much  as  a  child  from  among  the  lost 
crowd  with  whom  he  resolves  to  be  lost,— 
yet  goes  down  quietly  to  his  grave,  rather 
than  break  his  faith  to  these  few  emigrants. 
But  your  captain  by  divine  right,— your 
captain  with  the  hues  of  a  hundred  shields 
of  kings  upon  his  breast,— your  captain 
whose  every  deed,  brave  or  base,  will  be 
illuminated  or  branded  forever  before  un- 
escapable  eyes  of  men,— your  captain  whose 
every  thought  and  act  are  beneficent,  or 
330 


WAR 

fatal,  from  sun-rising  to  -setting,  blessing 
as  the  sunshine,  or  shadowing  as  the  night, 
—this  captain,  as  you  find  him  in  history, 
for  the  most  part  thinks  only  how  he  may 
tax  his  passengers,  and  sit  at  most  ease  in 
his  state  cabin! 

For  observe,  if  there  had  been  indeed  in 
the  hearts  of  the  rulers  of  great  multitudes 
of  men  any  such  conception  of  work  for  the 
good  of  those  under  their  command,  as 
there  is  in  the  good  and  thoughtful  masters 
of  any  small  company  of  men,  not  only  wars 
for  the  sake  of  mere  increase  of  power 
could  never  take  place,  but  our  idea  of 
power  itself  would  be  entirely  altered.  Do 
you  suppose  that  to  think  and  act  even  for 
a  million  of  men,  to  hear  their  complaints, 
watch  their  weaknesses,  restrain  their  vices, 
make  laws  for  them,  lead  them,  day  by  day, 
to  purer  life,  is  not  enough  for  one  man's 
work?  If  any  of  us  were  absolute  lord  only 
of  a  district  of  a  hundred  miles  square  and 
were  resolved  on  doing  our  utmost  for  it; 
making  it  feed  as  large  a  number  of  people 
as  possible;  making  every  clod  productive, 
and  every  rock  defensive,  and  every  human 
being  happy:  should  we  not  have  enough  on 
our  hands,  think  you? 

But  if  the  ruler  has  any  other  aim  than 
this;  if,  careless  of  the  result  of  his  inter- 
331 


THE  CROWN  OP  WILD  OLIVE 

ference,  he  desires  only  the  authority  to  in- 
terfere; and,  regardless  of  what  is  ill  done 
or  well  done,  cares  only  that  it  shall  be  done 
at  his  bidding;— if  he  would  rather  do  two 
hundred  miles'  space  of  mischief  than  one 
hundred  miles'  space  of  good,  of  course  he 
will  try  to  add  to  his  territory;  and  to  add 
inimitably.  But  does  he  add  to  his  power? 
Do  you  call  it  power  in  a  child,  if  he  is  al- 
lowed to  play  with  the  wheels  and  bands  of 
some  vast  engine,  pleased  with  their  mur- 
mur and  whirl,  till  his  unwise  touch,  wan- 
dering where  it  ought  not,  scatters  beam 
and  wheel  into  ruin?  Yet  what  machine  is 
so  vast,  so  incognizable,  as  the  working  of 
the  mind  of  a  nation;  what  child's  touch  so 
wanton  as  the  word  of  a  selfish  king?  And 
yet,  how  long  have  we  allowed  the  historian 
to  speak  of  the  extent  of  the  calamity  a 
man  causes,  as  a  just  ground  for  his  pride; 
and  to  extol  him  as  the  greatest  prince,  who 
is  only  the  center  of  the  widest  error.  Fol- 
low out  this  thought  by  yourselves;  and  you 
will  find  that  all  power,  properly  so  called, 
is  wise  and  benevolent.  There  may  be 
capacity  in  a  drifting  fire-ship  to  destroy  a 
fleet;  there  may  be  venom  enough  in  a  dead 
body  to  infect  a  nation:— but  which  of  you, 
the  most  ambitious,  would  desire  a  drifting 
kinghood,  robed  in  consuming  fire,  or  a  poi- 
332 


WAR 

son-dipped  scepter  whose  touch  was  mor- 
tal? There  is  no  true  potency,  remember, 
but  that  of  help;  nor  true  ambition,  but 
ambition  to  save. 

And  then,  observe  farther,  this  true 
power,  the  power  of  saving,  depends  neither 
on  multitude  of  men,  nor  on  extent  of  ter- 
ritory. We  are  continually  assuming  that 
nations  become  strong  according  to  their 
numbers.  They  indeed  become  so,  if  those 
numbers  can  be  made  of  one  mind;  but  how 
are  you  sure  you  can  stay  them  in  one 
mind,  and  keep  them  from  having  north 
and  south  minds?  Grant  them  unanimous, 
how  know  you  they  will  be  unanimous  in 
right?  If  they  are  unanimous  in  wrong, 
the  more  they  are,  essentially  the  weaker 
they  are.  Or,  suppose  that  they  can  neither 
be  of  one  mind,  nor  of  two  minds,  but  can 
only  be  of  no  mind?  Suppose  they  are  a 
mere  helpless  mob;  tottering  into  precipi- 
tant catastrophe,  like  a  wagon-load  of  stones 
when  the  wheel  comes  off.  Dangerous 
enough  for  their  neighbors,  certainly,  but 
not  "powerful." 

Neither  does  strength  depend  on  extent 
of  territory,  any  more  than  upon  number 
of  population.  Take  up  your  maps  when 
you  go  home  this  evening,— put  the  cluster 
of  British  Isles  beside  the  mass  of  South 
333 


THE   CROWN   OF   WILD   OLIVE 

America;  and  then  consider  whether  any 
race  of  men  need  care  how  much  ground 
they  stand  upon.  The  strength  is  in  the 
men,  and  in  their  unity  and  virtue,  not  in 
their  standing-room:  a  little  group  of  wise 
hearts  is  better  than  a  wilderness  full  of 
fools;  and  only  that  nation  gains  true  ter- 
ritory which  gains  itself. 

And  now  for  the  brief  practical  outcome 
of  all  this.  Remember,  no  government  is 
ultimately  strong,  but  in  proportion  to  its 
kindness  and  justice;  and  that  a  nation  does 
not  strengthen  by  merely  multiplying  and 
diffusing  itself.  We  have  not  strengthened, 
as  yet,  by  multiplying  into  America.  Nay, 
even  when  it  has  not  to  encounter  the 
separating  conditions  of  emigration,  a  na- 
tion need  not  boast  itself  of  multiplying  on 
its  own  ground,  if  it  multiplies  only  as 
flies  or  locusts  do,  with  the  god  of  flies  for 
its  god.  It  multiplies  its  strength  only  by 
increasing  as  one  great  family,  in  perfect 
fellowship  and  brotherhood.  And  lastly, 
it  does  not  strengthen  itself  by  seizing  do- 
minion over  races  whom  it  cannot  benefit. 
Austria  is  npt  strengthened,  but  weakened, 
by  her  grasp  of  Lombardy;  and  whatever 
apparent  increase  of  majesty  and  of  wealth 
may  have  accrued  to  us  from  the  posses- 
sion of  India,  whether  these  prove  to  us 
334 


WAR 

ultimately  power  or  weakness,  depends 
wholly  on  the  degree  in  which  our  influence 
on  the  native  race  shall  be  benevolent  and 
exalting. 

But,  as  it  is  at  their  own  peril  that  any 
race  extends  their  dominion  in  mere  desire 
of  power,  so  it  is  at  their  own  still  greater 
peril  that  they  refuse  to  undertake  aggres- 
sive war,  according  to  their  force,  whenever 
they  are  assured  that  their  authority  would 
be  helpful  and  protective.  Nor  need  you 
listen  to  any  sophistical  objection  of  the 
impossibility  of  knowing  when  a  people's 
help  is  needed,  or  when  not.  Make  your 
national  conscience  clean,  and  your  na- 
tional eyes  will  soon  be  clear.  No  man  who 
is  truly  ready  to  take  part  in  a  noble  quar- 
rel will  ever  stand  long  in  doubt  by  whom, 
or  in  what  cause,  his  aid  is  needed.  I  hold 
it  my  duty  to  make  no  political  statement  of 
any  special  bearing  in  this  presence;  but  I 
tell  you  broadly  and  boldly  that,  within 
these  last  ten  years,  we  English  have,  as  a 
knightly  nation,  lost  our  spurs:  we  have 
fought  where  we  should  not  have  fought, 
for  gain;  and  we  have  been  passive  where 
we  should  not  have  been  passive,  for  fear. 
I  tell  you  that  the  principle  of  non-inter- 
vention, as  now  preached  among  us,  is  as 
selfish  and  cruel  as  the  worst  frenzy  of  con- 
335 


THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE 

quest,  and  differs  from  it  only  by  being,  not 
only  malignant,  but  dastardly. 

I  know,  however,  that  my  opinions  on 
this  subject  differ  too  widely  from  those 
ordinarily  held,  to  be  any  farther  intruded 
upon  you;  and  therefore  I  pass  lastly  to  ex- 
amine the  conditions  of  the  third  kind  of 
noble  war;— war  waged  simply  for  defense 
of  the  country  in  which  we  were  born,  and 
for  the  maintenance  and  execution  of  her 
laws,  by  whomsoever  threatened  or  defied. 
It  is  to  this  duty  that  I  suppose  most  men 
entering  the  army  consider  themselves  in 
reality  to  be  bound,  and  I  want  you  now  to 
reflect  what  the  laws  of  mere  defense  are; 
and  what  the  soldier's  duty,  as  now  under- 
stood, or  supposed  to  be  understood.  You 
have  solemnly  devoted  yourselves  to  be 
English  soldiers,  for  the  guardianship  of 
England.  I  want  you  to  feel  what  this  vow 
of  yours  indeed  means,  or  is  gradually  com- 
ing to  mean. 

You  take  it  upon  you,  first,  while  you  are 
sentimental  school-boys;  you  go  into  your 
military  convent,  or  barracks,  just  as  a  girl 
goes  into  her  convent  while  she  is  a  senti- 
mental school-girl;  neither  of  you  then  know 
what  you  are  about,  though  both  the  good 
soldiers  and  good  nuns  make  the  best  of  it 
afterwards.  You  don't  understand  perhaps 
336 


WAR 

why  I  call  you  "  sentimental "  school-boys 
when  you  go  into  the  army?  Because,  on 
the  whole,  it  is  the  love  of  adventure,  of 
excitement,  of  fine  dress  and  of  the  pride  of 
fame,  all  which  are  sentimental  motives, 
which  chiefly  make  a  boy  like  going  into 
the  Guards  better  than  into  a  counting- 
house.  You  fancy,  perhaps,  that  there  is  a 
severe  sense  of  duty  mixed  with  these  pea- 
cocky  motives?  And  in  the  best  of  you 
there  is;  but  do  not  think  that  it  is  princi- 
pal. If  you  cared  to  do  your  duty  to  your 
country  in  a  prosaic  and  unsentimental  way, 
depend  upon  it,  there  is  now  truer  duty  to 
be  done  in  raising  harvests,,  than  in  burning 
them; more  in  building  houses, than  in  shell- 
ing them;  more  in  winning  money  by  your 
own  work,  wherewith  to  help  men,  than 
in  other  people's  work,  taxing  for  money 
wherewith  to  slay  men;— more  duty,  finally, 
in  honest  and  unselfish  living  than  in 
honest  and  unselfish  dying,  though  that 
seems  to  your  boys'  eyes  the  bravest.  So 
far,  then,  as  for  your  own  honor,  and  the 
honor  of  your  families,  you  choose  brave 
death  in  a  red  coat  before  brave  life  in  a 
black  one,  you  are  sentimental;  and  now 
see  what  this  passionate  vow  of  yours  comes 
to.  For  a  little  while  you  ride,  and  you 

hunt  tigers  or  savages,  you  shoot,  and  are 
22  337 


THE  CROWN   OF  WILD  OLIVE 

shot;  you  are  happy,  and  proud,  always, 
and  honored  and  wept  if  you  die;  and  you 
are  satisfied  with  your  life,  and  with  the 
end  of  it;  believing,  on  the  whole,  that  good 
rather  than  harm  of  it  comes  to  others,  and 
much  pleasure  to  you. 

But  as  the  sense  of  duty  enters  into  your 
forming  minds,  the  vow  takes  another  as- 
pect. You  find  that  you  have  put  your- 
selves into  the  hand  of  your  country  as  a 
weapon.  You  have  vowed  to  strike,  when 
she  bids  you,  and  to  stay  scabbarded  when 
she  bids  you;  all  that  you  need  answer  for 
is  that  you  fail  not  in  her  grasp.  And 
there  is  goodness  in  this,  and  greatness,  if 
you  can  trust  the  hand  and  heart  of  the 
Britomart  who  has  braced  you  to  her  side, 
and  are  assured  that  when  she  leaves  you 
sheathed  in  darkness,  there  is  no  need  for 
your  fiash  to  the  sun.  But  remember,  good 
and  noble  as  this  state  may  be,  it  is  a  state 
of  slavery.  There  are  different  kinds  of 
slaves  and  different  masters.  Some  slaves 
are  scourged  to  their  work  by  whips,  others 
are  scourged  to  it  by  restlessness  or  ambi- 
tion. It  does  not  matter  what  the  whip  is; 
it  is  none  the  less  a  whip  because  you  have 
cut  thongs  for  it  out  of  your  own  souls:  the 
fact,  so  far,  of  slavery,  is  in  being  driven  to 
your  work,  without  thought,  at  another's 
338 


WAR 

bidding.  Again,  some  slaves  are  bought 
with  money,  and  others  with  praise.  It 
matters  not  what  the  purchase-money  is. 
The  distinguishing  sign  of  slavery  is  to 
have  a  price,  and  be  bought  for  it.  Again, 
it  matters  not  what  kind  of  work  you  are 
set  on;  some  slaves  are  set  to  forced  dig- 
gings, others  to  forced  marches;  some  dig 
furrows,  others  field-works,  and  others 
graves.  Some  press  the  juice  of  reeds,  and 
some  the  juice  of  vines,  and  some  the  blood 
of  men.  The  fact  of  the  captivity  is  the 
same,  whatever  work  we  are  set  upon, 
though  the  fruits  of  the  toil  may  be  differ- 
ent. 

But,  remember,  in  thus  vowing  ourselves 
to  be  the  slaves  of  any  master,  it  ought  to 
be  some  subject  of  forethought  with  us, 
what  work  he  is  likely  to  put  us  upon.  You 
may  think  that  the  whole  duty  of  a  soldier 
is  to  be  passive,  that  it  is  the  country  you 
have  left  behind  who  is  to  command,  and 
you  have  only  to  obey.  But  are  you  sure 
that  you  have  left  all  your  country  behind, 
or  that  the  part  of  it  you  have  so  left  is  in- 
deed the  best  part  of  it?  Suppose— and, 
remember,  it  is  quite  conceivable— that  you 
yourselves  are  indeed  the  best  part  of  Eng- 
land; that  you,  who  have  become  the  slaves, 
ought  to  have  been  the  masters;  and  that 
339 


THE   CROWN   OF   WILD   OLIVE 

those  who  are  the  masters  ought  to  have 
been  the  slaves!  If  it  is  a  noble  and  whole- 
hearted England,  whose  bidding  you  are 
bound  to  do,  it  is  well;  but  if  you  are  your- 
selves the  best  of  her  heart,  and  the  Eng- 
land you  have  left  be  but  a  half-hearted 
England,  how  say  you  of  your  obedience? 
You  were  too  proud  to  become  shopkeep- 
ers: are  you  satisfied,  then,  to  become  the 
servants  of  shopkeepers?  You  were  too 
proud  to  become  merchants  or  farmers 
yourselves:  will  you  have  merchants  or 
farmers,  then,  for  your  field-marshals? 
You  had  no  gifts  of  special  grace  for  Exeter 
Hall:  will  you  have  some  gifted  person 
thereat  for  your  commander-in-chief,  to 
judge  of  your  work,  and  reward  it?  You 
imagine  yourselves  to  be  the  army  of  Eng- 
land: how  if  you  should  find  yourselves,  at 
last,  only  the  police  of  her  manufacturing 
towns,  and  the  beadles  of  her  Little  Bethels? 
It  is  not  so  yet,  nor  will  be  so,  I  trust, 
forever;  but  what  I  want  you  to  see,  and  to 
be  assured  of,  is  that  the  ideal  of  soldier- 
ship is  not  mere  passive  obedience  and 
bravery;  that,  so  far  from  this,  no  country 
is  in  a  healthy  state  which  has  separated, 
even  in  a  small  degree,  her  civil  from  her 
military  power.  All  states  of  the  world, 
however  great,  fall  at  once  when  they  use 
340 


WAR 

mercenary  armies;  and  although  it  is  a  less 
instant  form  of  error  (because  involving  no 
national  taint  of  cowardice),  it  is  yet  an 
error  no  less  ultimately  fatal— it  is  the 
error  especially  of  modern  times,  of  which 
we  cannot  yet  know  all  the  calamitous  con- 
sequences—to take  away  the  best  blood 
and  strength  of  the  nation,  all  the  soul-sub- 
stance of  it  that  is  brave,  and  careless  of 
reward,  and  scornful  of  pain,  and  faithful  in 
trust,  and  to  cast  that  into  steel,  and  make 
a  mere  sword  of  it,  taking  away  its  voice 
and  will;  but  to  keep  the  worst  part  of  the 
nation— whatever  is  cowardly,  avaricious, 
sensual,  and  faithless— and  to  give  to  this 
the  voice,  to  this  the  authority,  to  this  the 
chief  privilege,  where  there  is  least  capacity 
of  thought. 

The  fulfilment  of  your  vow  for  the  de- 
fense of  England  will  by  no  means  consist 
in  carrying  out  such  a  system.  You  are 
not  true  soldiers,  if  you  only  mean  to  stand 
at  a  shop  door,  to  protect  shop-boys  who 
are  cheating  inside.  A  soldier's  vow  to  his 
country  is  that  he  will  die  for  the  guardian- 
ship of  her  domestic  virtue,  of  her  right- 
eous laws,  and  of  her  any-way  challenged  or 
endangered  honor.  A  state  without  virtue, 
without  laws,  and  without  honor,  he  is 
bound  not  to  defend;  nay,  bound  to  redress 
341 


THE  CROWN   OF   WILD   OLIVE 

by  his  own  right  hand  that  which  he  sees 
to  be  base  in  her. 

So  sternly  is  this  the  law  of  Nature  and 
life  that  a  nation  once  utterly  corrupt  can 
only  be  redeemed  by  a  military  despotism— 
never  by  talking,  nor  by  its  free  effort. 
And  the  health  of  any  state  consists  simply 
in  this:  that  in  it,  those  who  are  wisest 
shall  also  be  strongest;  its  rulers  should  be 
also  its  soldiers;  or,  rather,  by  force  of  in- 
tellect more  than  of  sword,  its  soldiers  also 
its  rulers.  Whatever  the  hold  which  the 
aristocracy  of  England  has  on  the  heart  of 
England,  in  that  they  are  still  always  in 
front  of  her  battles,  this  hold  will  not  be 
enough,  unless  they  are  also  in  front  of  her 
thoughts.  And  truly  her  thoughts  need 
good  captain's  leading  now,  if  ever!  Do 
you  know  what,  by  this  beautiful  division 
of  labor  (her  brave  men  fighting,  and  her 
cowards  thinking),  she  has  come  at  last  to 
think?  Here  is  a  paper  in  my  hand,1  a  good 
one  too,  and  an  honest  one;  quite  repre- 
sentative of  the  best  common  public 

1  [I  do  not  care  to  refer  to  the  journal  quoted,  because  the 
article  was  unworthy  of  its  general  tone,  though  in  order  to 
enable  the  audience  to  verify  the  quoted  sentence,  I  left  the 
number  containing  it  on  the  table,  when  I  gave  this  Lecture. 
But  a  saying  of  Baron  Liebig's,  quoted  at  the  head  of  a  leader 
on  the  same  subject  in  the  "Daily  Telegraph  "  of  January  11, 
1866,  summarily  digests  and  presents  the  maximum  folly  of 
modern  .thought  in  this  respect.  "  Civilization,"  says  the 

342 


WAR 

thought  of  England  at  this  moment;  and  it 
is  holding  forth  in  one  of  its  leaders  upon 
our  "  social  welfare  "—upon  our  "  vivid  life  " 
—upon  the  "political  supremacy  of  Great 
Britain."  And  what  do  you  think  all  these 
are  owing  to?  To  what  our  English  sires 
have  done  for  us,  and  taught  us,  age  after 
age?  No;  not  to  that.  To  our  honesty  of 
heart,  or  coolness  of  head,  or  steadiness  of 
will?  No;  not  to  these.  To  our  thinkers, 
or  our  statesmen,  or  our  poets,  or  our  cap- 
tains, or  our  martyrs,  or  the  patient  labor 
of  our  poor?  No;  not  to  these;  or  at  least 
not  to  these  in  any  chief  measure.  Nay, 
says  the  journal,  "more  than  any  agency, 
it  is  the  cheapness  and  abundance  of  our 
coal  which  have  made  us  what  we  are."  If 
it  be  so,  then  "ashes  to  ashes"  be  our 
epitaph!  and  the  sooner  the  better. 

Gentlemen  of  England,  if  ever  you  would 
have  your  country  breathe  the  pure  breath 
of  heaven  again,  and  receive  again  a  soul 
into  her  body,  instead  of  rotting  into  a  car- 
cass, blown  up  in  the  belly  with  carbonic 

Baron, "  is  the  economy  of  power,  and  English  power  is  coal." 
Not  altogether  so,  my  chemical  friend.  Civilization  is  the 
making  of  civil  persons,  which  is  a  kind  of  distillation  of 
which  alembics  are  incapable,  and  does  not  at  all  imply  the 
turning  of  a  small  company  of  gentlemen  into  a  large  com- 
pany of  ironmongers.  And  English  power  (what  little  of  it 
may  be  left)  is  by  no  means  coal,  but,  indeed,  of  that  which, 
"when  the  whole  world  turns  to  coal,  then  chiefly  lives."] 

343 


THE  CROWN   OF  WILD  OLIVE 

acid  (and  great  that  way),  you  must  think, 
and  feel,  for  your  England,  as  well  as  fight 
for  her:  you  must  teach  her  that  all  the 
true  greatness  she  ever  had,  she  won  while 
her  fields  were  green  and  her  faces  ruddy; 
and  that  greatness  is  still  possible  for  Eng- 
lishmen, even  though  the  ground  be  not 
hollow  under  their  feet,  nor  the  sky  black 
over  their  heads. 

And  bear  with  me,  you  soldier  youths,— 
who  are  thus  in  all  ways  the  hope  of  your 
country,  or  must  be,  if  she  have  any  hope, 
—if  I  urge  you  with  rude  earnestness  to 
remember  that  your  fitness  for  all  future 
trust  depends  upon  what  you  are  now.  No 
good  soldier  in  his  old  age  was  ever  careless 
or  indolent  in  his  youth.  Many  a  giddy 
and  thoughtless  boy  has  become  a  good 
bishop,  or  a  good  lawyer,  or  a  good  mer- 
chant; but  no  such  an  one  ever  became  a 
good  general.  I  challenge  you,  in  all  his- 
tory, to  find  a  record  of  a  good  soldier  who 
was  not  grave  and  earnest  in  his  youth. 
And,  in  general,  I  have  no  patience  with 
people  who  talk  of  **  the  thoughtlessness  of 
youth  "  indulgently.  I  had  infinitely  rather 
hear  of  thoughtless  old  age,  and  the  indul- 
gence due  to  that.  When  a  man  has  done 
his  work,  and  nothing  can  any  way  be  ma- 
terially altered  in  his  fate,  let  him  forget 
344 


WAR 

his  toil,  and  jest  with  his  fate,  if  he  will; 
but  what  excuse  can  you  find  for  wilfulness 
of  thought  at  the  very  time  when  every 
crisis  of  future  fortune  hangs  on  your  de- 
cisions? A  youth  thoughtless!  when  all 
the  happiness  of  his  home  forever  depends 
on  the  chances,  or  the  passions,  of  an  hour! 
A  youth  thoughtless!  when  the  career  of 
all  his  days  depends  on  the  opportunity  of 
a  moment !  A  youth  thoughtless !  when  his 
every  act  is  as  a  torch  to  the  laid  train  of 
future  conduct,  and  every  imagination  a 
fountain  of  life  or  death!  Be  thoughtless 
in  -any  after  years,  rather  than  now— 
though,  indeed,  there  is  only  one  place 
where  a  man  may  be  nobly  thoughtless— 
his  death-bed.  No  thinking  should  ever  be 
left  to  be  done  there. 

Having,  then,  resolved  that  you  will  not 
waste  recklessly,  but  earnestly  use,  these 
early  days  of  yours,  remember  that  all  the 
duties  of  her  children  to  England  may  be 
summed  in  two  words— industry,  and  honor. 
I  say,  first,  industry,  for  it  is  in  this  that 
soldier  youth  are  especially  tempted  to  fail. 
Yet,  surely,  there  is  no  reason,  because 
your  life  may  possibly  or  probably  be 
shorter  than  other  men's,  that  you  should 
therefore  waste  more  recklessly  the  por- 
tion of  it  that  is  granted  you;  neither  do  the 
345 


THE  CROWN  OP  WILD  OLIVE 

duties  of  your  profession,  which  require  you 
to  keep  your  bodies  strong,  in  any  wise  in- 
volve the  keeping  of  your  minds  weak.  So 
far  from  that,  the  experience,  the  hardship, 
and  the  activity  of  a  soldier's  life  render 
his  powers  of  thought  more  accurate  than 
those  of  other  men;  and  while,  for  others, 
all  knowledge  is  often  little  more  than  a 
means  of  amusement,  there  is  no  form  of 
science  which  a  soldier  may  not  at  some 
time  or  other  find  bearing  on  business  of 
life  and  death.  A  young  mathematician 
may  be  excused  for  languor  in  studying 
curves  to  be  described  only  with  a  pencil; 
but  not  in  tracing  those  which  are  to  be 
described  with  a  rocket.  Your  knowledge 
of  a  wholesome  herb  may  involve  the  feed- 
ing of  an  army;  and  acquaintance  with  an 
obscure  point  of  geography,  the  success  of 
a  campaign.  Never  waste  an  instant's 
time,  therefore:  the  sin  of  idleness  is  a 
thousandfold  greater  in  you  than  in  other 
youths;  for  the  fates  of  those  who  will  one 
day  be  under  your  command  hang  upon 
your  knowledge;  lost  moments  now  will  be 
lost  lives  then,  and  every  instant  which 
you  carelessly  take  for  play,  you  buy  with 
blood. 

But  there  is  one  way  of  wasting  time,  of 
all  the  vilest,  because  it  wastes,  not  time 
346 


WAR 

only,  but  the  interest  and  energy  of  your 
minds.  Of  all  the  ungentlemanly  habits 
into  which  you  can  fall,  the  vilest  is  betting, 
or  interesting  yourselves  in  the  issues  of 
betting.  It  unites  nearly  every  condition 
of  folly  and  vice;  you  concentrate  your  in- 
terest upon  a  matter  of  chance,  instead  of 
upon  a  subject  of  true  knowledge;  and  you 
back  opinions  which  you  have  no  grounds 
for  forming,  merely  because  they  are  your 
own.  All  the  insolence  of  egotism  is  in 
this;  and  so  far  as  the  love  of  excitement 
is  complicated  with  the  hope  of  winning 
money,  you  turn  yourselves  into  the  basest 
sort  of  tradesmen— those  who  live  by  specu- 
lation. Were  there  no  other  ground  for 
industry,  this  would  be  a  sufficient  one:  that 
it  protected  you  from  the  temptation  to  so 
scandalous  a  vice.  Work  faithfully,  and 
you  will  put  yourselves  in  possession  of  a 
glorious  and  enlarging  happiness;  not  such 
as  can  be  won  by  the  speed  of  a  horse,  or 
marred  by  the  obliquity  of  a  ball. 

First,  then,  by  industry  you  must  fulfil 
your  vow  to  your  country;  but  all  industry 
and  earnestness  will  be  useless  unless  they 
are  consecrated  by  your  resolution  to  be  in 
all  things  men  of  honor;  not  honor  in  the 
common  sense  only,  but  in  the  highest. 
Rest  on  the  force  of  the  two  main  words  in 
347 


THE  CROWN   OF  WILD   OLIVE 

the  great  verse,  "integer  vitse,  scelerisque 
purus."  You  have  vowed  your  life  to  Eng- 
land; give  it  her  wholly;— a  bright,  stain- 
less, perfect  life— a  knightly  life.  Because 
you  have  to  fight  with  machines  instead  of 
lances,  there  may  be  a  necessity  for  more 
ghastly  danger,  but  there  is  none  for  less 
worthiness  of  character  than  in  olden  time. 
You  may  be  true  knights  yet,  though  per- 
haps not  equites;  you  may  have  to  call  your- 
selves "cannonry"  instead  of  "chivalry," 
but  that  is  no  reason  why  you  should  not 
call  yourselves  true  men.  So  the  first 
thing  you  have  to  see  to  in  becoming  sol- 
diers is  that  you  make  yourselves  wholly 
true.  Courage  is  a  mere  matter  of  course 
among  any  ordinarily  well-born  youths;  but 
neither  truth  nor  gentleness  is  matter  of 
course.  You  must  bind  them  like  shields 
about  your  necks;  you  must  write  them  on 
the  tables  of  your  hearts.  Though  it  be 
not  exacted  of  you,  yet  exact  it  of  your- 
selves, this  vow  of  stainless  truth.  Your 
hearts  are,  if  you  leave  them  unstirred,  as 
tombs  in  which  a  god  lies  buried.  Vow 
yourselves  crusaders  to  redeem  that  sacred 
sepulcher.  And  remember,  before  all 
things,— for  no  other  memory  will  be  so  pro- 
tective of  you,— that  the  highest  law  of  this 
knightly  truth  is  that  under  which  it  is 
348 


WAR 

vowed  to  women.  Whomsoever  else  you 
deceive,  whomsoever  you  injure,  whomso- 
ever you  leave  unaided,  you  must  not  de- 
ceive, nor  injure,  nor  leave  unaided,  accord- 
ing to  your  power,  any  woman,  of  whatever 
rank.  Believe  me,  every  virtue  of  the 
higher  phases  of  manly  character  begins  in 
this;— in  truth  and  modesty  before  the  face 
of  all  maidens;  in  truth  and  pity,  or  truth 
and  reverence,  to  all  womanhood. 

And  now  let  me  turn  for  a  moment  to 
you,— wives  and  maidens,  who  are  the  souls 
of  soldiers;  to  you,— mothers,  who  have  de- 
voted your  children  to  the  great  hierarchy 
of  war.  Let  me  ask  you  to  consider  what 
part  you  have  to  take  for  the  aid  of  those 
who  love  you;  for  if  you  fail  in  your  part 
they  cannot  fulfil  theirs;  such  absolute  help- 
mates you  are  that  no  man  can  stand  with- 
out that  help,  nor  labor  in  his  own  strength. 

I  know  your  hearts,  and  that  the  truth  of 
them  never  fails  when  an  hour  of  trial 
comes  which  you  recognize  for  such.  But 
you  know  not  when  the  hour  of  trial  first 
finds  you,  nor  when  it  verily  finds  you.  You 
imagine  that  you  are  only  called  upon  to 
wait  and  to  suffer;  to  surrender  and  to 
mourn.  You  know  that  you  must  not 
weaken  the  hearts  of  your  husbands  and 
lovers,  even  by  the  one  fear  of  which  those 
349 


THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE 

hearts  are  capable,— the  fear  of  parting 
from  you,  or  of  causing  you  grief.  Through 
weary  years  of  separation;  through  fearful 
expectancies  of  unknown  fate;  through  the 
tenfold  bitterness  of  the  sorrow  which 
might  so  easily  have  been  joy,  and  the  ten- 
fold yearning  for  glorious  life  struck  down 
in  its  prime;— through  all  these  agonies  you 
fail  not,  and  never  will  fail.  But  your  trial 
is  not  in  these.  To  be  heroic  in  danger  is 
little;— you  are  Englishwomen.  To  be 
heroic  in  change  and  sway  of  fortune  is 
little;— for  do  you  not  love?  To  be  patient 
through  the  great  chasm  and  pause  of  loss 
is  little;— for  do  you  not  still  love  in  heaven? 
But  to  be  heroic  in  happiness;  to  bear  your- 
selves gravely  and  righteously  in  the  daz- 
zling of  the  sunshine  of  morning;  not  to 
forget  the  God  in  whom  you  trust,  when  He 
gives  you  most;  not  to  fail  those  who  trust 
you,  when  they  seem  to  need  you  least— 
this  is  the  difficult  fortitude.  It  is  not  in  the 
pining  of  absence,  not  in  the  peril  of  battle, 
not  in  the  wasting  of  sickness,  that  your 
prayer  should  be  most  passionate,  or  your 
guardianship  most  tender.  Pray,  mothers 
and  maidens,  for  your  young  soldiers  in  the 
bloom  of  their  pride;  pray  for  them  while 
the  only  dangers  round  them  are  in  their 
own  wayward  wills;  watch  you,  and  pray, 
350 


WAR 

when  they  have  to  face,  not  death,  but 
temptation.  But  it  is  this  fortitude  also  for 
which  there  is  the  crowning  reward.  Be- 
lieve me,  the  whole  course  and  character  of 
your  lovers'  lives  is  in  your  hands:  what 
you  would  have  them  be,  they  shall  be,  if 
you  not  only  desire  to  have  them  so,  but 
deserve  to  have  them  so;  for  they  are  but 
mirrors  in  which  you  will  see  yourselves 
imaged.  If  you  are  frivolous,  they  will  be 
so  also;  if  you  have  no  understanding  of  the 
scope  of  their  duty,  they  also  will  forget  it; 
they  will  listen— they  can  listen— to  no 
other  interpretation  of  it  than  that  uttered 
from  your  lips.  Bid  them  be  brave;— they 
will  be  brave  for  you:  bid  them  be  cowards; 
—and  how  noble  soever  they  be,  they  will 
quail  for  you.  Bid  them  be  wise,  and  they 
will  be  wise  for  you;  mock  at  their  counsel, 
they  will  be  fools  for  you:  such  and  so  abso- 
lute is  your  rule  over  them.  You  fancy, 
perhaps,  as  you  have  been  told  so  often, 
that  a  wife's  rule  should  only  be  over  her 
husband's  house,  not  over  his  mind.  Ah, 
no!  the  true  rule  is  just  the  reverse  of  that; 
a  true  wife,  in  her  husband's  house,  is  his 
servant;  it  is  in  his  heart  that  she  is  queen. 
Whatever  of  best  he  can  conceive,  it  is  her 
part  to  be;  whatever  of  highest  he  can  hope, 
it  is  hers  to  promise;  all  that  is  dark  in  him 
351 


THE   CROWN   OF   WILD   OLIVE 

she  must  purge  into  purity;  all  that  is  fail- 
ing in  him  she  must  strengthen  into  truth; 
from  her,  through  all  the  world's  clamor, 
he  must  win  his  praise;  in  her,  through  all 
the  world's  warfare,  he  must  find  his  peace. 
And  now,  but  one  word  more.  You  may 
wonder,  perhaps,  that  I  have  spoken  all 
this  night  in  praise  of  war.  Yet,  truly,  if  it 
might  be,  I,  for  one,  would  fain  join  in  the 
cadence  of  hammer-strokes  that  should  beat 
swords  into  plowshares:  and  that  this  can- 
not be  is  not  the  fault  of  us  men.  It  is 
your  fault.  Wholly  yours.  Only  by  your 
command,  or  by  your  permission,  can  any 
contest  take  place  among  us.  And  the  real, 
final  reason  for  all  the  poverty,  misery,  and 
rage  of  battle  throughout  Europe,  is  simply 
that  you  women,  however  good,  however 
religious,  however  self-sacrificing  for  those 
whom  you  love,  are  too  selfish  and  too 
thoughtless  to  take  pains  for  any  crea- 
ture out  of  your  own  immediate  circles. 
You  fancy  that  you  are  sorry  for  the  pain 
of  others.  Now  I  just  tell  you  this:  that  if 
the  usual  course  of  war,  instead  of  unroofing 
peasants'  houses,  and  ravaging  peasants' 
fields,  merely  broke  the  china  upon  your  own 
drawing-room  tables,  no  war  in  civilized 
countries  would  last  a  week.  I  tell  you 
more:  that  at  whatever  moment  you  chose 
352 


WAR 

to  put  a  period  to  war,  you  could  do  it  with 
less  trouble  than  you  take  any  day  to  go  out 
to  dinner.  You  know,  or  at  least  you 
might  know  if  you  would  think,  that  every 
battle  you  hear  of  has  made  many  widows 
and  orphans.  We  have,  none  of  us,  heart 
enough  truly  to  mourn  with  these.  But  at 
least  we  might  put  on  the  outer  symbols  of 
mourning  with  them.  Let  but  every  Chris- 
tian lady  who  has  conscience  toward  God, 
vow  that  she  will  mourn,  at  least  outwardly, 
for  His  killed  creatures.  Your  praying  is 
useless,  and  your  church-going  mere  mock- 
ery of  God,  if  you  have  not  plain  obedience 
in  you  enough  for  this.  Let  every  lady  in 
the  upper  classes  of  civilized  Europe  simply 
vow  that,  while  any  cruel  war  proceeds,  she 
will  wear  black;— a  mute's  black,— with  no 
jewel,  no  ornament,  no  excuse  for,  or  eva- 
sion into,  prettiness— I  tell  you  again,  no 
war  would  last  a  week. 

And,  lastly.  You  women  of  England  are 
all  now  shrieking  with  one  voice,— you  and 
your  clergymen  together,— because  you  hear 
of  your  Bibles  being  attacked.  If  you  choose 
to  obey  your  Bibles,  you  will  never  care  who 
attacks  them.  It  is  just  because  you  never 
fulfil  a  single  downright  precept  of  the 
Book  that  you  are  so  careful  for  its  credit: 
and  just  because  you  don't  care  to  obey  its 
23  353 


THE  CROWN   OP  WILD  OLIVE 

whole  words  that  you  are  so  particular 
about  the  letters  of  them.  The  Bible  tells 
you  to  dress  plainly,— and  you  are  mad  for 
finery;  the  Bible  tells  you  to  have  pity  on 
the  poor,— and  you  crush  them  under  your 
carriage  wheels;  the  Bible  tells  you  to  do 
judgment  and  justice,— and  you  do  not 
know,  nor  care  to  know,  so  much  as  what 
the  Bible  word  "justice"  means.  Do  but 
learn  so  much  of  God's  truth  as  that  comes 
to;  know  what  He  means  when  He  tells  you 
to  be  just;  and  teach  your  sons  that  their 
bravery  is  but  a  fool's  boast  and  their  deeds 
but  a  firebrand's  tossing,  unless  they  are 
indeed  Just  men,  and  Perfect  in  the  Fear  of 
God:— and  you  will  soon  have  no  more  war, 
unless  it  be  indeed  such  as  is  willed  by  Him 
of  whom,  though  Prince  of  Peace,  it  is  also 
written,  "  In  Righteousness  He  doth  judge, 
and  make  war." 


354 


LECTURE  IV 
THE   FUTURE  OF   ENGLAND 


LECTURE 

IV 
THE  FUTURE  OF  ENGLAND 


Delivered  at  the  R.A.  Institution,  Woolwich, 
December  14, 1869. 


I  WOULD  fain  have  left  to  the  frank  ex- 
pression of  the  moment,  but  fear  I  could 
not  have  found  clear  words— I  cannot 
easily  find  them,  even  deliberately— to  tell 
you  how  glad  I  am,  and  yet  how  ashamed, 
to  accept  your  permission  to  speak  to  you. 
Ashamed  of  appearing  to  think  that  I  can 
tell  you  any  truth  which  you  have  not  more 
deeply  felt  than  I;  but  glad  in  the  thought 
that  my  less  experience,  and  way  of  life 
sheltered  from  the  trials,  and  free  from  the 
responsibilities  of  yours,  may  have  left  me 
with  something  of  a  child's  power  of  help 
to  you;  a  sureness  of  hope,  which  may  per- 
haps be  the  one  thing  that  can  be  helpful  to 
men  who  have  done  too  much  not  to  have 
often  failed  in  doing  all  that  they  desired. 
And,  indeed,  even  the  most  hopeful  of  us 
cannot  but  now  be  in  many  things  appre- 
hensive. For  this  at  least  we  all  know  too 
357 


THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE 

well:  that  we  are  on  the  eve  of  a  great  po- 
litical crisis,  if  not  of  political  change.  That 
a  struggle  is  approaching  between  the 
newly  risen  power  of  democracy  and  the 
apparently  departing  power  of  feudalism; 
and  another  struggle,  no  less  imminent, 
and  far  more  dangerous,  between  wealth 
and  pauperism.  These  two  quarrels  are 
constantly  thought  of  as  the  same.  They 
are  being  fought  together,  and  an  appa- 
rently common  interest  unites  for  the  most 
part  the  millionaire  with  the  noble,  in  re- 
sistance to  a  multitude,  crying,  part  of  it 
for  bread  and  part  of  it  for  liberty. 

And  yet  no  two  quarrels  can  be  more  dis- 
tinct. Riches— so  far  from  being  necessary 
to  noblesse— are  adverse  to  it.  So  utterly 
adverse  that  the  first  character  of  all  the 
Nobilities  which  have  founded  great  dynas- 
ties in  the  world  is  to  be  poor;— often  poor 
by  oath— always  poor  by  generosity.  And 
of  every  true  knight  in  the  chivalric  ages, 
the  first  thing  history  tells  you  is  that  he 
never  kept  treasure  for  himself. 

Thus  the  causes  of  wealth  and  noblesse 
are  not  the  same,  but  opposite.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  causes  of  anarchy  and  of 
the  poor  are  not  the  same,  but  opposite. 
Side  by  side,  in  the  same  rank,  are  now  in- 
deed set  the  pride  that  revolts  against  au- 
358 


THE   FUTURE   OP   ENGLAND 

thority,  and  the  misery  that  appeals  against 
avarice.  But,  so  far  from  being  a  common 
cause,  all  anarchy  is  the  forerunner  of  pov- 
erty, and  all  prosperity  begins  in  obedience. 
So  that,  thus,  it  has  become  impossible  to 
give  due  support  to  the  cause  of  order,  with- 
out seeming  to  countenance  injury;  and 
impossible  to  plead  justly  the  claims  of 
sorrow,  without  seeming  to  plead  also  for 
those  of  license. 

Let  me  try,  then,  to  put  in  very  brief 
terms  the  real  plan  of  this  various  quarrel, 
and  the  truth  of  the  cause  on  each  side. 
Let  us  face  that  full  truth,  whatever  it  may 
be,  and  decide  what  part,  according  to  our 
power,  we  should  take  in  the  quarrel. 

First.  For  eleven  hundred  years,  all  but 
five,  since  Charlemagne  set  on  his  head  the 
Lombard  crown,  the  body  of  European  peo- 
ple have  submitted  patiently  to  be  gov- 
erned; generally  by  kings— always  by  single 
leaders  of  some  kind.  But  for  the  last  fifty 
years  they  have  begun  to  suspect,  and  of 
late  they  have  many  of  them  concluded,  that 
they  have  been  on  the  whole  ill-governed, 
or  misgoverned,  by  their  kings.  Where- 
upon they  say,  more  and  more  widely,  "  Let 
us  henceforth  have  no  kings;  and  no  gov- 
ernment at  all." 

Now  we  said  we  must  face  the  full  truth 
359 


THE  CROWN   OF  WILD  OLIVE 

of  the  matter,  in  order  to  see  what  we  are 
to  do.  And  the  truth  is  that  the  people 
have  been  misgoverned;— that  very  little  is 
to  be  said,  hitherto,  for  most  of  their  mas- 
ters—and that  certainly  in  many  places 
they  will  try  their  new  system  of  "  no  mas- 
ters":—and  as  that  arrangement  will  be 
delightful  to  all  foolish  persons,  and,  at 
first,  profitable  to  all  wicked  ones,— and  as 
these  classes  are  not  wanting  or  unimpor- 
tant in  any  human  society,— the  experiment 
is  likely  to  be  tried  extensively.  And  the 
world  may  be  quite  content  to  endure  much 
suffering  with  this  fresh  hope,  and  retain 
its  faith  in  anarchy,  whatever  conies  of  it, 
till  it  can  endure  no  more. 

Then,  secondly.  The  people  have  begun 
to  suspect  that  one  particular  form  of  this 
past  misgovernment  has  been  that  their 
masters  have  set  them  to  do  all  the  work, 
and  have  themselves  taken  all  the  wages. 
In  a  word,  that  what  was  called  governing 
them,  meant  only  wearing  fine  clothes,  and 
living  on  good  fare,  at  their  expense.  And, 
I  am  sorry  to  say,  the  people  are  quite  right 
in  this  opinion  also.  If  you  inquire  into 
the  vital  fact  of  the  matter,  this  you  will 
find  to  be  the  constant  structure  of  Euro- 
pean society  for  the  thousand  years  of  the 
feudal  system:  it  was  divided  into  peasants 
360 


THE   FUTURE  OP   ENGLAND 

who  lived  by  working;  priests  who  lived  by 
begging;  and  knights  who  lived  by  pillag- 
ing; and  as  the  luminous  public  mind  be- 
comes gradually  cognizant  of  these  facts,  it 
will  assuredly  not  suffer  things  to  be  alto- 
gether arranged  that  way  any  more;  and 
the  devising  of  other  ways  will  be  an  agi- 
tating business;  especially  because  the  first 
impression  of  the  intelligent  populace  is 
that,  whereas,  in  the  dark  ages,  half  the 
nation  lived  idle,  in  the  bright  ages  to  come, 
the  whole  of  it  may. 

Now,  thirdly— and  here  is  much  the 
worst  phase  of  the  crisis.  This  past  system 
of  misgovernment,  especially  during  the 
last  three  hundred  years,  has  prepared,  by 
its  neglect,  a  class  among  the  lower  orders 
which  it  is  now  peculiarly  difficult  to  gov- 
ern. It  deservedly  lost  their  respect— but 
that  was  the  least  part  of  the  mischief. 
The  deadly  part  of  it  was  that  the  lower 
orders  lost  their  habit,  and  at  last  their 
faculty,  of  respect— lost  the  very  capability 
of  reverence,  which  is  the  most  precious 
part  of  the  human  .soul.  Exactly  in  the 
degree  in  which  you  can  find  creatures 
greater  than  yourself  to  look  up  to,  in  that 
degree  you  are  ennobled  yourself,  and,  in 
that  degree,  happy.  If  you  could  live  al- 
ways in  the  presence  of  archangels,  you 
361 


THE  CROWN  OP  WILD  OLIVE 

would  be  happier  than  in  that  of  men;  but 
even  if  only  in  the  company  of  admirable 
knights  and  beautiful  ladies,  the  more  noble 
and  bright  they  were,  and  the  more  you 
could  reverence  their  virtue,  the  happier 
you  would  be.  On  the  contrary,  if  you 
were  condemned  to  live  among  a  multitude 
of  idiots,  dumb,  distorted,  and  malicious, 
you  would  not  be  happy  in  the  constant 
sense  of  your  own  superiority.  Thus  all 
real  joy  and  power  of  progress  in  humanity 
depend  on  finding  something  to  reverence, 
and  all  the  baseness  and  misery  of  human- 
ity begin  in  a  habit  of  disdain.  Now,  by 
general  misgovernment,  I  repeat,  we  have 
created  in  Europe  a  vast  populace,  and  out 
of  Europe  a  still  vaster  one,  which  has  lost 
even  the  power  and  conception  of  rever- 
ence; l  which  exists  only  in  the  worship  of 
itself;  which  can  neither  see  anything 
beautiful  around  it,  nor  conceive  anything 
virtuous  above  it;  which  has,  towards  all 
goodness  and  greatness,  no  other  feelings 
than  those  of  the  lowest  creatures— fear, 
hatred,  or  hunger;  a  populace  which  has 
sunk  below  your  appeal  in  their  nature,  as 
it  has  risen  beyond  your  power  in  their 
multitude;— whom  you  can  now  no  more 

>  Compare  "Time  and  Tide,"  g  169,  and  "Fore  Clavigera," 
Letter  XIV.  p.  9. 

362 


THE   FUTURE  OF   ENGLAND 

charm  than  you  can  the  adder,  nor  disci- 
pline than  you  can  the  summer  fly. 

It  is  a  crisis,  gentlemen;  and  time  to 
think  of  it.  I  have  roughly  and  broadly  put 
it  before  you  in  its  darkness.  Let  us  look 
what  we  may  find  of  light. 

Only  the  other  day,  in  a  journal  which  is 
a  fairly  representative  exponent  of  the 
Conservatism  of  our  day,  and  for  the  most 
part  not  at  all  in  favor  of  strikes  or  other 
popular  proceedings,  only  about  three  weeks 
since,  there  was  a  leader  with  this,  or  a 
similar,  title— "What  is  to  become  of  the 
House  of  Lords?"  It  startled  me,  for  it 
seemed  as  if  we  were  going  even  faster  than 
I  had  thought,  when  such  a  question  was 
put  as  a  subject  of  quite  open  debate,  in  a 
journal  meant  chiefly  for  the  reading  of  the 
middle  and  upper  classes.  Open  or  not— 
the  debate  is  near.  What  is  to  become  of 
them?  And  the  answer  to  such  question 
depends  first  on  their  being  able  to  answer 
another  question— "What  is  the  use  of 
them!"  For  some  time  back,  I  think  the 
theory  of  the  nation  has  been,  that  they  are 
useful  as  impediments  to  business,  so  as 
to  give  time  for  second  thoughts.  But  the 
nation  is  getting  impatient  of  impediments 
to  business;  and  certainly,  sooner  or  later, 
will  think  it  needless  to  maintain  these  ex- 
363 


THE  CROWN   OP  WILD   OLIVE 

pensive  obstacles  to  its  humors.  And  I 
have  not  heard,  either  in  public  or  from 
any  of  themselves,  a  clear  expression  of 
their  own  conception  of  their  use.  So  that 
it  seems  thus  to  become  needful  for  all  men 
to  tell  them,  as  our  one  quite  clear-sighted 
teacher,  Carlyle,  has  been  telling  us  for 
many  a  year,  that  the  use  of  the  Lords  of  a 
country  is  to  govern  the  country.  If  they 
answer  that  use,  the  country  will  rejoice  in 
keeping  them;  if  not,  that  will  become  of 
them  which  must  of  all  things  found  to 
have  lost  their  serviceableness. 

Here,  therefore,  is  the  one  question,  at 
this  crisis,  for  them,  and  for  us.  Will  they 
be  lords  indeed,  and  give  us  laws— dukes 
indeed,  and  give  us  guiding— princes  in- 
deed, and  give  us  beginning,  of  truer  dy- 
nasty, which  shall  not  be  soiled  by  covet- 
ousness,  nor  disordered  by  iniquity?  Have 
they  themselves  sunk  so  far  as  not  to  hope 
this?  Are  there  yet  any  among  them  who 
can  stand  forward  with  open  English  brows, 
and  say,— So  far  as  in  me  lies,  I  will  govern 
with  my  might,  not  for  Dieu  et  mon  Droit, 
but  for  the  first  grand  reading  of  the  war- 
cry  from  which  that  was  corrupted,  "  Dieu 
et  Droit"?  Among  them  I  know  there  are 
some— among  you,  soldiers  of  England,  I 
know  there  are  many— who  can  do  this;  and 
364 


THE   FUTURE  OF   ENGLAND 

in  you  is  our  trust.  I,  one  of  the  lower  peo- 
ple of  your  country,  ask  of  you  in  their 
name,— you  whom  I  will  not  any  more  call 
soldiers,  but  by  the  truer  name  of  Knights; 
— Equites  of  England.  How  many  yet  of 
you  are  there,  knights  errant  now  beyond 
all  former  fields  of  danger— knights  patient 
now  beyond  all  former  endurance;  who  still 
retain  the  ancient  and  eternal  purpose  of 
knighthood,  to  subdue  the  wicked,  and  aid 
the  weak?  To  them,  be  they  few  or  many, 
we  English  people  call  for  help  to  the 
wretchedness,  and  for  rule  over  the  base- 
ness, of  multitudes  desolate  and  deceived, 
shrieking  to  one  another  this  new  gospel  of 
their  new  religion:  "Let  the  weak  do  as 
they  can,  and  the  wicked  as  they  will." 

I  can  hear  you  saying  in  your  hearts,  even 
the  bravest  of  you,  "The  time  is  past  for 
all  that."  Gentlemen,  it  is  not  so.  The 
time  has  come  for  more  than  all  that. 
Hitherto,  soldiers  have  given  their  lives  for 
false  fame,  and  for  cruel  power.  The  day 
is  now  when  they  must  give  their  lives  for 
true  fame,  and  for  beneficent  power:  and 
the  work  is  near  every  one  of  you— close 
beside  you— the  means  of  it  even  thrust 
into  your  hands.  The  people  are  crying  to 
you  for  command,  and  you  stand  there  at 
pause,  and  silent.  You  think  they  don't 
365 


THE  CROWN   OF  WILD  OLIVE 

want  to  be  commanded:  try  them;  deter- 
mine what  is  needful  for  them— honorable 
for  them;  show  it  them,  promise  to  bring 
them  to  it,  and  they  will  follow  you  through 
fire.  "  Govern  us,"  they  cry  with  one  heart, 
though  many  minds.  They  can  be  gov- 
erned still,  these  English;  they  are  men 
still;  not  gnats,  nor  serpents.  They  love 
their  old  ways  yet,  and  their  old  masters, 
and  their  old  land.  They  would  fain  live  in 
it,  as  many  as  may  stay  there,  if  you  will 
show  them  how,  there,  to  live;— or  show 
them  even  how,  there,  like  Englishmen,  to 
die. 

"To  live  in  it,  as  many  as  may!"  How 
many  do  you  think  may?  How  many  can  ? 
How  many  do  you  want  to  live  there?  As 
masters,  your  first  object  must  be  to  in- 
crease your  power;  and  in  what  does  the 
power  of  a  country  consist?  Will  you  have 
dominion  over  its  stones,  or  over  its  clouds, 
or  over  its  souls?  What  do  you  mean  by  a 
great  nation,  but  a  great  multitude  of  men 
who  are  true  to  each  other,  and  strong,  and 
of  worth?  Now  you  can  increase  the  mul- 
titude only  definitely— your  island  has  only 
so  much  standing-room— but  you  can  in- 
crease the  worth  indefinitely.  It  is  but  a 
little  island;— suppose,  little  as  it  is,  you 
were  to  fill  it  with  friends?  You  may,  and 
366 


THE  FUTURE   OF   ENGLAND 

that  easily.  You  must,  and  that  speedily; 
or  there  will  be  an  end  to  this  England  of 
ours,  and  to  all  its  loves  and  enmities. 

To  fill  this  little  island  with  true  friends 
—men  brave,  wise,  and  happy!  Is  it  so  im- 
possible, think  you,  after  the  world's  eigh- 
teen hundred  years  of  Christianity,  and  our 
own  thousand  years  of  toil,  to  fill  only  this 
little  white  gleaming  crag  with  happy  crea- 
tures, helpful  to  each  other?  Africa,  and 
India,  and  the  Brazilian  wide-watered  plain, 
are  these  not  wide  enough  for  the  ignorance 
of  our  race?  have  they  not  space  enough 
for  its  pain  ?  Must  we  remain  here  also  sav- 
age,— here  at  enmity  with  each  other,— 
here  foodless,  houseless,  in  rags,  in  dust, 
and  without  hope,  as  thousands  and  tens 
of  thousands  of  us  are  lying?  Do  not  think 
it,  gentlemen.  The  thought  that  it  is  in- 
evitable is  the  last  infidelity;  infidelity  not 
to  God  only,  but  to  every  creature  and 
every  law  that  He  has  made.  Are  we  to 
think  that  the  earth  was  only  shaped  to  be 
a  globe  of  torture;  and  that  there  cannot  be 
one  spot  of  it  where  peace  can  rest,  or  jus- 
tice reign?  Where  are  men  ever  to  be 
happy,  if  not  in  England?  by  whom  shall 
they  ever  be  taught  to  do  right,  if  not  by 
you?  Are  we  not  of  a  race  first  among  the 
strong  ones  of  the  earth;  the  blood  in  us 
367 


THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE 

incapable  of  weariness,  unconquerable  by 
grief?  Have  we  not  a  history  of  which  we 
can  hardly  think  without  becoming  insolent 
in  our  just  pride  of  it?  Can  we  dare,  with- 
out passing  every  limit  of  courtesy  to  other 
nations,  to  say  how  much  more  we  have  to 
be  proud  of  in  our  ancestors  than  they? 
Among  our  ancient  monarchs,  great  crimes 
stand  out  as  monstrous  and  strange.  But 
their  valor,  and,  according  to  their  under- 
standing, their  benevolence,  are  constant. 
The  Wars  of  the  Roses,  which  are  as  a  fear- 
ful crimson  shadow  on  our  land,  represent 
the  normal  condition  of  other  nations;  while 
from  the  days  of  the  Heptarchy  downwards 
we  have  had  examples  given  us,  in  all  ranks, 
of  the  most  varied  and  exalted  virtue;  a 
heap  of  treasure  that  no  moth  can  corrupt, 
and  which  even  our  traitorship,  if  we  are  to 
become  traitors  to  it,  cannot  sully. 

And  this  is  the  race,  then,  that  we  know 
not  any  more  how  to  govern!  and  this  the 
history  which  we  are  to  behold  broken  off 
by  sedition!  and  this  is  the  country,  of  all 
others,  where  life  is  to  become  difficult  to 
the  honest,  and  ridiculous  to  the  wise !  And 
the  catastrophe,  forsooth,  is  to  come  just 
when  we  have  been  making  swiftest  prog- 
ress beyond  the  wisdom  and  wealth  of  the 
past.  Our  cities  are  a  wilderness  of  spin- 
368 


THE   FUTURE   OF   ENGLAND 

ning-wheels  instead  of  palaces;  yet  the 
people  have  not  clothes.  We  have  black- 
ened every  leaf  of  English  greenwood  with 
ashes,  and  the  people  die  of  cold;  our  har- 
bors are  a  forest  of  merchant-ships,  and  the 
people  die  of  hunger. 

Whose  fault  is  it?  Yours,  gentlemen; 
yours  only.  You  alone  can  feed  them,  and 
clothe,  and  bring  into  their  right  minds,  for 
you  only  can  govern— that  is  to  say,  you 
only  can  educate  them. 

Educate,  or  govern,  they  are  one  and  the 
same  word.  Education  does  not  mean 
teaching  people  to  know  what  they  do  not 
know.  It  means  teaching  them  to  behave 
as  they  do  not  behave.  And  the  true 
"  compulsory  education  "  which  the  people 
now  ask  of  you  is  not  catechism,  but  drill. 
It  is  not  teaching  the  youth  of  England  the 
shapes  of  letters  and  the  tricks  of  numbers; 
and  then  leaving  them  to  turn  their  arith- 
metic to  roguery,  and  their  literature  to 
lust.  It  is,  on  the  contrary,  training  them 
into  the  perfect  exercise  and  kingly  conti- 
nence of  their  bodies  and  souls.  It  is  a  pain- 
ful, continual,  and  difficult  work;  to  be  done 
by  kindness,  by  watching,  by  warning,  by 
precept,  and  by  praise,— but  above  all— by 
example. 

Compulsory!  Yes,  by  all  means!  "Go 
24  369 


THE  CROWN  OP  WILD  OLIVE 

ye  out  into  the  highways  and  hedges,  and 
compel  them  to  come  in."  Compulsory! 
Yes,  and  gratis  also.  Dei  Gratia,  they  must 
be  taught,  as,  Dei  Gratia,  you  are  set  to 
teach  them.  I  hear  strange  talk  continu- 
ally, "  how  difficult  it  is  to  make  people  pay 
for  being  educated! "  Why,  I  should  think 
so!  Do  you  make  your  children  pay  for 
their  education,  or  do  you  give  it  them  com- 
pulsorily,  and  gratis?  You  do  not  expect 
them  to  pay  you  for  their  teaching,  except 
by  becoming  good  children.  Why  should 
you  expect  a  peasant  to  pay  for  his,  except 
by  becoming  a  good  man?— payment  enough, 
I  think,  if  we  knew  it  Payment  enough  to 
himself,  as  to  us.  For  that  is  another  of 
our  grand  popular  mistakes— people  are 
always  thinking  of  education  as  a  means  of 
livelihood.  Education  is  not  a  profitable 
business,  but  a  costly  one;  nay,  even  the 
best  attainments  of  it  are  always  unprofit- 
able, in  any  terms  of  coin.  No  nation  ever 
made  its  bread  either  by  its  great  arts  or 
its  great  wisdoms.  By  its  minor  arts  or 
manufactures,  by  its  practical  knowledges, 
yes:  but  its  noble  scholarship,  its  noble 
philosophy,  and  its  noble  art,  are  always  to 
be  bought  as  a  treasure,  not  sold  for  a  live- 
lihood. You  do  not  learn  that  you  may  live 
—you  live  that  you  may  learn.  You  are  to 
370 


THE  FUTURE   OF   ENGLAND 

spend  on  National  Education,  and  to  be 
spent  for  it,  and  to  make  by  it,  not  more 
money,  but  better  men;— to  get  into  this 
British  Island  the  greatest  possible  number 
of  good  and  brave  Englishmen.  They  are 
to  be  your  "  money's  worth." 

But  where  is  the  money  to  come  from? 
Yes,  that  is  to  be  asked.  Let  us,  as  quite 
the  first  business  in  this  our  national  crisis, 
look  not  only  into  our  affairs,  but  into  our 
accounts,  and  obtain  some  general  notion 
how  we  annually  spend  our  money,  and 
what  we  are  getting  for  it.  Observe,  I  do 
not  mean  to  inquire  into  the  public  revenue 
only;  of  that  some  account  is  rendered  al- 
ready. But  let  us  do  the  best  we  can  to  set 
down  the  items  of  the  national  private  ex- 
penditure; and  know  what  we  spend  alto- 
gether, and  how. 

To  begin  with  this  matter  of  education. 
You  probably  have  nearly  all  seen  the  ad- 
mirable lecture  lately  given  by  Captain 
Maxse,  at  Southampton.  It  contains  a  clear 
statement  of  the  facts  at  present  ascer- 
tained as  to  our  expenditure  in  that  respect. 
It  appears  that  of  our  public  moneys,  for 
every  pound  that  we  spend  on  education  we 
spend  twelve  either  in  charity  or  punish- 
ment;—ten  millions  a  year  in  pauperism 
and  crime,  and  eight  hundred  thousand  in 
371 


THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE 

instruction.  Now  Captain  Maxse  adds  to 
this  estimate  of  ten  millions  public  money 
spent  on  crime  and  want,  a  more  or  less 
conjectural  sum  of  eight  millions  for  pri- 
vate charities.  My  impression  is  that  this 
is  much  beneath  the  truth,  but  at  all  events 
it  leaves  out  of  consideration  much  the 
heaviest  and  saddest  form  of  charity— the 
maintenance,  by  the  working  members  of 
families,  of  the  unfortunate  or  ill-conducted 
persons  whom  the  general  course  of  mis- 
rule now  leaves  helpless  to  be  the  burden 
of  the  rest. 

Now  I  want  to  get  first  at  some,  I  do  not 
say  approximate,  but  at  all  events  some 
suggestive,  estimate  of  the  quantity  of  real 
distress  and  misguided  life  in  this  country. 
Then  next,  I  want  some  fairly  representa- 
tive estimate  of  our  private  expenditure  in 
luxuries.  We  won't  spend  more,  publicly, 
it  appears,  than  eight  hundred  thousand  a 
year,  on  educating  men  gratis.  I  want  to 
know,  as  nearly  as  possible,  what  we  spend 
privately  a  year,  in  educating  horses  gratis. 
Let  us,  at  least,  quit  ourselves  in  this  from 
the  taunt  of  Rabshakeh,  and  see  that  for 
every  horse  we  train  also  a  horseman;  arid 
that  the  rider  be  at  least  as  high-bred  as 
the  horse,  not  j  ockey,  but  cheval  ier.  Again, 
we  spend  eight  hundred  thousand,  which  is 
372 


THE   FUTURE   OF   ENGLAND 

certainly  a  great  deal  of  money,  in  making 
rough  minds  bright.  I  want  to  know  how 
much  we  spend  annually  in  making  rough 
stones  bright;  that  is  to  say,  what  may  be 
the  united  annual  sum,  or  near  it,  of  our 
jewelers'  bills.  So  much  we  pay  for  edu- 
cating children  gratis;— how  much  for  edu- 
cating diamonds  gratis?  and  which  pays 
best  for  brightening,  the  spirit,  or  the  char- 
coal? Let  us  get  those  two  items  set  down 
with  some  sincerity,  and  a  few  more  of  the 
same  kind.  Publicly  set  down.  We  must 
not  be  ashamed  of  the  way  we  spend  our 
money.  If  our  right  hand  is  not  to  know 
what  our  left  does,  it  must  not  be  because 
it  would  be  ashamed  if  it  did. 

That  is,  therefore,  quite  the  first  practi- 
cal thing  to  be  done.  Let  every  man  who 
wishes  well  to  his  country,  render  it  yearly 
an  account  of  his  income,  and  of  the  main 
heads  of  his  expenditure;  or,  if  he  is  ashamed 
to  do  so,  let  him  no  more  impute  to  the  poor 
their  poverty  as  a  crime,  nor  set  them  to 
break  stones  in  order  to  frighten  them  from 
committing  it.  To  lose  money  ill  is  indeed 
often  a  crime;  but  to  get  it  ill  is  a  worse 
one,  and  to  spend  it  ill,  worst  of  all.  You 
object,  Lords  of  England,  to  increase,  to  the 
poor,  the  wages  you  give  them,  because  they 
spend  them,  you  say,  unadvisedly.  Render 
25 


THE  CROWN  OP  WILD  OLIVE 

them,  therefore,  an  account  of  the  wages 
which  they  give  you;  and  show  them,  by 
your  example,  how  to  spend  theirs,  to  the 
last  farthing,  advisedly. 

It  is  indeed  time  to  make  this  an  acknow- 
ledged subject  of  instruction,  to  the  work- 
ingman,— how  to  spend  his  wages.  For, 
gentlemen,  we  must  give  that  instruction, 
whether  we  will  or  no,  one  way  or  the 
other.  We  have  given  it  in  years  gone  by; 
and  now  we  find  fault  with  our  peasantry 
for  having  been  too  docile,  and  profited  too 
shrewdly  by  our  tuition.  Only  a  few  days 
since  I  had  a  letter  from  the  wife  of  a  vil- 
lage rector,  a  man  of  common  sense  and 
kindness,  who  was  greatly  troubled  in  his 
mind  because  it  was  precisely  the  men  who 
got  highest  wages  in  summer  that  came 
destitute  to  his  door  in  the  winter.  Des- 
titute, and  of  riotous  temper— for  their 
method  of  spending  wages  in  their  period 
of  prosperity  was  by  sitting  two  days  a 
week  in  the  tavern  parlor,  ladling  port  wine, 
not  out  of  bowls,  but  out  of  buckets.  Well, 
gentlemen,  who  taught  them  that  method 
of  festivity?  Thirty  years  ago,  I,  a  most 
inexperienced  freshman,  went  to  my  first 
college  supper;  at  the  head  of  the  table  sat 
a  nobleman  of  high  promise  and  of  admir- 
able powers,  since  dead  of  palsy;  there  also 
374 


THE   FUTURE   OF   ENGLAND 

we  had  in  the  midst  of  us,  not  buckets,  in- 
deed, but  bowls  as  large  as  buckets;  there 
also  we  helped  ourselves  with  ladles.  There 
(for  this  beginning  of  college  education  was 
compulsory)  I,  choosing  ladlefuls  of  punch 
instead  of  claret,  because  I  was  then  able, 
unperceived,  to  pour  them  into  my  waist- 
coat instead  of  down  my  throat,  stood  it 
out  to  the  end,  and  helped  to  carry  four  of 
my  fellow-students,  one  of  them  the  son  of 
the  head  of  a  college,  head  foremost,  down- 
stairs and  home. 

Such  things  are  no  more;  but  the  fruit  of 
them  remains,  and  will  for  many  a  day  to 
come.  The  laborers  whom  you  cannot  now 
shut  out  of  the  ale-house  are  only  the  too 
faithful  disciples  of  the  gentlemen  who 
were  wont  to  shut  themselves  into  the  din- 
ing-room. The  gentlemen  have  not  thought 
it  necessary,  in  order  to  correct  their  own 
habits,  to  diminish  their  incomes;  and,  be- 
lieve me,  the  way  to  deal  with  your  drunken 
workman  is  not  to  lower  his  wages,— but  to 
mend  his  wits.1 

And  if  indeed  we  do  not  yet  see  quite 
clearly  how  to  deal  with  the  sins  of  our 
poor  brother,  it  is  possible  that  our  dimness 
of  sight  may  still  have  other  causes  that 
can  be  cast  out.  There  are  two  opposite 

i  Compare  §  70  of  "  Time  and  Tide." 

375 


THE  CROWN   OF  WILD   OLIVE 

cries  of  the  great  Liberal  and  Conservative 
parties,  which  are  both  most  right,  and 
worthy  to  be  rallying-cries.  On  their  side, 
"  Let  every  man  have  his  chance  ";  on  yours, 
"  Let  every  man  stand  in  his  place."  Yes, 
indeed,  let  that  be  so,  every  man  in  his 
place,  and  every  man  fit  for  it.  See  that  he 
holds  that  place  from  Heaven's  Providence; 
and  not  from  his  family's  Providence.  Let 
the  Lords  Spiritual  quit  themselves  of 
simony,  we  laymen  will  look  after  the  here- 
tics for  them.  Let  the  Lords  Temporal 
quit  themselves  of  nepotism,  and  we  will 
take  care  of  their  authority  for  them.  Pub- 
lish for  us,  you  soldiers,  an  army  gazette, 
in  which  the  one  subject  of  daily  intelli- 
gence shall  be  the  grounds  of  promotion;  a 
gazette  which  shall  simply  tell  us,  what 
there  certainly  can  be  no  detriment  to  the 
service  in  our  knowing,  when  any  officer  is 
appointed  to  a  new  command,— what  his 
former  services  and  successes  have  been,— 
whom  he  has  superseded,— and  on  what 
ground.  It  will  be  always  a  satisfaction  to 
us;  it  may  sometimes  be  an  advantage  to 
you:  and  then,  when  there  is  really  neces- 
sary debate  respecting  reduction  of  wages, 
let  us  always  begin,  not  with  the  wages  of 
the  industrious  classes,  but  with  those  of 
the  idle  ones.  Let  there  be  honorary  titles, 
376 


THE   FUTURE   OF   ENGLAND 

if  people  like  them;  but  let  there  be  no  hon- 
orary incomes. 

So  much  for  the  master's  motto,  "  Every 
man  in  his  place."  Next  for  the  laborer's 
motto,  "Every  man  his  chance."  Let  us 
mend  that  for  them  a  little,  and  say, "  Every 
man  his  certainty  "—certainty  that  if  he 
does  well,  he  will  be  honored,  and  aided, 
and  advanced  in  such  degree  as  may  be  fit- 
ting for  his  faculty  and  consistent  with  his 
peace;  and  equal  certainty  that  if  he  does 
ill,  he  will  by  sure  justice  be  judged,  and  by 
sure  punishment  be  chastised— if  it  may  be, 
corrected,  and  if  that  may  not  be,  con- 
demned. That  is  the  right  reading  of  the 
Republican  motto,  "  Every  man  his  chance." 
And  then,  with  such  a  system  of  govern- 
ment, pure,  watchful,  and  just,  you  may 
approach  your  great  problem  of  national 
education,  or,  in  other  words,  of  national 
employment.  For  all  education  begins  in 
work.  What  we  think,  or  what  we  know, 
or  what  we  believe,  is,  in  the  end,  of  little 
consequence.  The  only  thing  of  conse- 
quence is  what  we  do :  and  for  man,  woman, 
or  child,  the  first  point  of  education  is  to 
make  them  do  their  best.  It  is  the  law  of 
good  economy  to  make  the  best  of  every- 
thing. How  much  more  to  make  the  best 
of  every  creature!  Therefore,  when  your 
377 


THE  CROWN   OF  WILD   OLIVE 

pauper  comes  to  you  and  asks  for  bread, 
ask  of  him  instantly— What  faculty  have 
you?  What  can  you  do  best?  Can  you 
drive  a  nail  into  wood?  Go  and  mend  the 
parish  fences.  Can  you  lay  a  brick?  Mend 
the  walls  of  the  cottages  where  the  wind 
comes  in.  Can  you  lift  a  spadeful  of  earth? 
Turn  this  field  up  three  feet  deep  all  over. 
Can  you  only  drag  a  weight  with  your 
shoulders?  Stand  at  the  bottom  of  this 
hill  and  help  up  the  overladen  horses.  Can 
you  weld  iron  and  chisel  stone?  Fortify 
this  wreck-strewn  coast  into  a  harbor;  and 
change  these  shifting  sands  into  fruitful 
ground.  Wherever  death  was,  bring  life; 
that  is  to  be  your  work;  that  your  parish 
refuge;  that  your  education.  So  and  no 
otherwise  can  we  meet  existent  distress. 
But  for  the  continual  education  of  the  whole 
people,  and  for  their  future  happiness,  they 
must  have  such  consistent  employment  as 
shall  develop  all  the  powers  of  the  fingers, 
and  the  limbs,  and  the  brain:  and  that  de- 
velopment is  only  to  be  obtained  by  hand- 
labor,  of  which  you  have  these  four  great 
divisions— hand-labor  on  the  earth,  hand- 
labor  on  the  sea,  hand-labor  in  art,  hand- 
labor  in  war.  Of  the  last  two  of  these  I 
cannot  speak  to-night,  and  of  the  first  two 
only  with  extreme  brevity. 
378 


THE  FUTURE   OP   ENGLAND 

I.  Hand-labor  on  the  earth,  the  work  of 
the  husbandman  and  of  the  shepherd;— to 
dress  the  earth  and  to  keep  the  flocks  of  it 
—the  first  task  of  man,  and  the  final  one— 
the  education  always  of  noblest  law-givers, 
kings  and  teachers;  the  education  of  Hesiod, 
of  Moses,  of  David,  of  all  the  true  strength 
of  Rome;  and  all  its  tenderness:  the  pride 
of  Cincinnatus,  and  the  inspiration  of  Vir- 
gil. Hand-labor  on  the  earth,  and  the 
harvest  of  it  brought  forth  with  singing:— 
not  steam-piston  labor  on  the  earth,  and 
the  harvest  of  it  brought  forth  with  steam- 
whistling.  You  will  have  no  prophet's 
voice  accompanied  by  that  shepherd's  pipe, 
and  pastoral  symphony.  Do  you  know  that 
lately,  in  Cumberland,  in  the  chief  pastoral 
district  of  England,— in  Wordsworth's  own 
home,— a  procession  of  villagers  on  their 
festa  day  provided  for  themselves,  by  way 
of  music,  a  steam-plow  whistling  at  the 
head  of  them. 

Give  me  patience  while  I  put  the  princi- 
ple of  machine  labor  before  you,  as  clearly 
and  in  as  short  compass  as  possible;  it  is 
one  that  should  be  known  at  this  juncture. 
Suppose  a  farming  proprietor  needs  to  em- 
ploy a  hundred  men  on  his  estate,  and  that 
the  labor  of  these  hundred  men  is  enough, 
but  not  more  than  enough,  to  till  all  his 
379 


THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE 

land,  and  to  raise  from  it  food  for  his  own 
family,  and  for  the  hundred  laborers.  He 
is  obliged,  under  such  circumstances,  to 
maintain  all  the  men  in  moderate  comfort, 
and  can  only  by  economy  accumulate  much 
for  himself.  But,  suppose  he  contrive  a 
machine  that  will  easily  do  the  work  of  fifty 
men,  with  only  one  man  to  watch  it.  This 
sounds  like  a  great  advance  in  civilization. 
The  farmer  of  course  gets  his  machine 
made,  turns  off  the  fifty  men,  who  may 
starve  or  emigrate  at  their  choice,  and  now 
he  can  keep  half  of  the  produce  of  his  es- 
tate, which  formerly  went  to  feed  them,  all 
to  himself.  That  is  the  essential  and  con- 
stant operation  of  machinery  among  us  at 
this  moment. 

Nay,  it  is  at  first  answered;  no  man  can 
in  reality  keep  half  the  produce  of  an  estate 
to  himself,  nor  can  he  in  the  end  keep  more 
than  his  own  human  share  of  anything;  his 
riches  must  diffuse  themselves  at  some 
time;  he  must  maintain  somebody  else  with 
them,  however  he  spends  them.  That  is 
mainly  true  (not  altogether  so),  for  food 
and  fuel  are  in  ordinary  circumstances  per- 
sonally wasted  by  rich  people,  in  quantities 
which  would  save  many  lives.  One  of  my 
own  great  luxuries,  for  instance,  is  candle- 
light—and I  probably  burn,  for  myself  alone, 
380 


THE   FUTURE   OF   ENGLAND 

as  many  candles,  during  the  winter,  as 
would  comfort  the  old  eyes,  or  spare  the 
young  ones,  of  a  whole  rush-lighted  country 
village.  Still,  it  is  mainly  true  that  it  is 
not  by  their  personal  waste  that  rich  people 
prevent  the  lives  of  the  poor.  This  is  the 
way  they  do  it.  Let  me  go  back  to  my 
farmer.  He  has  got  his  machine  made, 
which  goes  creaking,  screaming,  and  occa- 
sionally exploding,  about  modern  Arcadia. 
He  has  turned  off  his  fifty  men  to  starve. 
Now,  at  some  distance  from  his  own  farm, 
there  is  another  on  which  the  laborers  were 
working  for  their  bread  in  the  same  way, 
by  tilling  the  land.  The  machinist  sends 
over  to  these,  saying— "I  have  got  food 
enough  for  you  without  your  digging  or 
plowing  any  more.  I  can  maintain  you  in 
other  occupations  instead  of  plowing  that 
land;  if  you  rake  in  its  gravel  you  will  find 
some  hard  stones— you  shall  grind  those  on 
mills  till  they  glitter;  then,  my  wife  shall 
wear  a  necklace  of  them.  Also,  if  you  turn 
up  the  meadows  below,  you  will  find  some 
fine  white  clay,  of  which  you  shall  make  a 
porcelain  service  for  me:  and  the  rest  of 
the  farm  I  want  for  pasture  for  horses  for 
my  carriage— and  you  shall  groom  them, 
and  some  of  you  ride  behind  the  carriage 
with  staves  in  your  hands,  and  I  will  keep 
381 


THE  CROWN   OF  WILD  OLIVE 

you  much  fatter  for  doing  that  than  you 
can  keep  yourselves  by  digging." 

Well— but  it  is  answered,  are  we  to  have 
no  diamonds,  nor  china,  nor  pictures,  nor 
footmen,  then— but  all  to  be  farmers?  I 
am  not  saying  what  we  ought  to  do;  I  want 
only  to  show  you  with  perfect  clearness 
first  what  we  are  doing;  and  that,  I  repeat, 
is  the  upshot  of  machine-contriving  in  this 
country.  And  observe  its  effect  on  the 
national  strength.  Without  machines,  you 
have  a  hundred  and  fifty  yeomen  ready  to 
join  for  defense  of  the  land.  You  get  your 
machine,  starve  fifty  of  them,  make  dia- 
mond-cutters or  footmen  of  as  many  more, 
and  for  your  national  defense  against  an 
enemy  you  have  now,  and  can  have,  only 
fifty  men,  instead  of  a  hundred  and  fifty; 
these  also  now  with  minds  much  alienated 
from  you  as  their  chief,1  and  the  rest,  lapi- 
daries or  footmen;— and  a  steam-plow. 

That  is  one  effect  of  machinery;  but,  at 
all  events,  if  we  have  thus  lost  in  men,  we 
have  gained  in  riches;  instead  of  happy 
human  souls,  we  have  at  least  got  pictures, 
china,  horses,  and  are  ourselves  better  off 
than  we  were  before.  But  very  often,  and 
in  much  of  our  machine-contriving,  even 

1  [They  were  deserting,  I  am  informed,  in  the  early  part  of 
this  year,  1873,  at  the  rate  of  a  regiment  a  week.] 

382 


THE   FUTURE  OF   ENGLAND 

that  result  does  not  follow.  We  are  not 
one  whit  the  richer  for  the  machine;  we 
only  employ  it  for  our  amusement.  For 
observe,  our  gaining  in  riches  depends  on 
the  men  who  are  out  of  employment  con- 
senting to  he  starved,  or  sent  out  of  the 
country.  But  suppose  they  do  not  consent 
passively  to  be  starved,  but  some  of  them 
become  criminals,  and  have  to  be  taken 
charge  of  and  fed  at  a  much  greater  cost 
than  if  they  were  at  work,  and  others, 
paupers,  rioters,  and  the  like,  then  you  at- 
tain the  real  outcome  of  modern  wisdom 
and  ingenuity.  You  had  your  hundred  men 
honestly  at  country  work;  but  you  don't  like 
the  sight  of  human  beings  in  your  fields; 
you  like  better  to  see  a  smoking  kettle. 
You  pay,  as  an  amateur,  for  that  pleasure, 
and  you  employ  your  fifty  men  in  picking 
oakum,  or  begging,  rioting,  and  thieving. 

By  hand-labor,  therefore,  and  that  alone, 
we  are  to  till  the  ground.  By  hand-labor 
also  to  plow  the  sea;  both  for  food,  and  in 
commerce,  and  in  war:  not  with  floating 
kettles  there  neither,  but  with  hempen 
bridle,  and  the  winds  of  heaven  in  harness. 
That  is  the  way  the  power  of  Greece  rose 
on  her  ^gean,  the  power  of  Venice  on  her 
Adria,  of  Amalfi  in  her  blue  bay,  of  the  Nor- 
man sea-riders  from  the  North  Cape  to 
383 


THE  CROWN   OF   WILD   OLIVE 

Sicily:— so,  your  own  dominion  also  of  the 
past.  Of  the  past,  mind  you.  On  the  Bal- 
tic and  the  Nile,  your  power  is  already  de- 
parted. By  machinery  you  would  advance 
to  discovery;  by  machinery  you  would  carry 
your  commerce;— you  would  he  engineers 
instead  of  sailors;  and  instantly  in  the  North 
seas  you  are  beaten  among  the  ice,  and 
before  the  very  Gods  of  Nile,  beaten  among 
the  sand.  Agriculture,  then,  by  the  hand 
or  by  the  plow  drawn  only  by  animals,  and 
shepherd  and  pastoral  husbandry,  are  to  be 
the  chief  schools  of  Englishmen.  And  this 
most  royal  academy  of  all  academies  you 
have  to  open  over  all  the  land,  purifying 
your  heaths  and  hills,  and  waters,  and 
keeping  them  full  of  every  kind  of  lovely 
natural  organism,  in  tree,  herb,  and  living 
creature.  All  land  that  is  waste  and  ugly, 
you  must  redeem  into  ordered  fruitfulness; 
all  ruin,  desolateness,  imperfectness  of  hut 
or  habitation,  you  must  do  away  with;  and 
throughout  every  village  and  city  of  your 
English  dominion,  there  must  not  be  a  hand 
that  cannot  find  a  helper,  nor  a  heart  that 
cannot  find  a  comforter. 

"  How  impossible! "  I  know  you  are  think- 
ing.    Ah!    So  far  from  impossible,  it  is 
easy,  it  is  natural,  it  is  necessary,  and  I 
declare  to  you  that,  sooner  or  later,  it  must 
384 


THE   FUTURE   OP   ENGLAND 

be  done,  at  our  peril.  If  now  our  English 
lords  of  land  will  fix  this  idea  steadily  be- 
fore them;  take  the  people  to  their  hearts, 
trust  to  their  loyalty,  lead  their  labor;— 
then  indeed  there  will  be  princes  again 
in  the  midst  of  us,  worthy  of  the  island 
throne, 

This  royal  throne  of  kings — this  sceptered  isle  — 
This  fortress  built  by  nature  for  herself 
Against  infection,  and  the  hand  of  war ; 
This  precious  stone  set  in  the  silver  sea ; 
This  happy  breed  of  men  —  this  little  world: 
This  other  Eden  —  Demi-Paradise. 

But  if  they  refuse  to  do  this,  and  hesitate 
and  equivocate,  clutching  through  the  con- 
fused catastrophe  of  all  things  only  at  what 
they  can  still  keep  stealthily  for  themselves, 
—their  doom  is  nearer  than  even  their  ad- 
versaries hope,  and  it  will  be  deeper  than 
even  their  despisers  dream. 

That,  believe  me,  is  the  work  you  have  to 
do  in  England;  and  out  of  England  you  have 
room  for  everything  else  you  care  to  do. 
Are  her  dominions  in  the  world  so  narrow 
that  she  can  find  no  place  to  spin  cotton  in 
but  Yorkshire?  We  may  organize  emigra- 
tion into  an  infinite  power.  We  may  as- 
semble troops  of  the  more  adventurous  and 
ambitious  of  our  youth;  we  may  send  them 
on  truest  foreign  service,  founding  new  seats 
385 


THE  CROWN   OF  WILD  OLIVE 

of  authority,  and  centers  of  thought,  in 
uncultivated  and  unconquered  lands;  retain- 
ing the  full  affection  to  the  native  country 
no  less  in  our  colonists  than  in  our  armies, 
teaching  them  to  maintain  allegiance  to 
their  fatherland  in  labor  no  less  than  in 
battle;  aiding  them  with  free  hand  in  the 
prosecution  of  discovery,  and  the  victory 
over  adverse  natural  powers;  establishing 
seats  of  every  manufacture  in  the  climates 
and  places  best  fitted  for  it,  and  bringing 
ourselves  into  due  alliance  and  harmony  of 
skill  with  the  dexterities  of  every  race,  and 
the  wisdoms  of  every  tradition  and  every 
tongue. 

And  then  you  may  make  England  itself 
the  center  of  the  learning,  of  the  arts,  of 
the  courtesies  and  felicities  of  the  world. 
You  may  cover  her  mountains  with  pasture; 
her  plains  with  corn,  her  valleys  with  the 
lily,  and  her  gardens  with  the  rose.  You 
may  bring  together  there  in  peace  the  wise 
and  the  pure,  and  the  gentle  of  the  earth, 
and  by  their  word,  command  through  its 
farthest  darkness  the  birth  of  "God's  first 
creature,  which  was  Light."  You  know 
whose  words  those  are:  the  words  of  the 
wisest  of  Englishmen.  He,  and  with  him 
the  wisest  of  all  other  great  nations,  have 
spoken  always  to  men  of  this  hope,  and  they 
386 


THE   FUTURE   OF   ENGLAND 

would  not  hear.  Plato,  in  the  dialogue  of 
Critias,  his  last,  broken  off  at  his  death,— 
Pindar,  in  passionate  singing  of  the  fortu- 
nate islands,— Virgil,  in  the  prophetic  tenth 
eclogue,— Bacon,  in  his  fable  of  the  New 
Atlantis,— More,  in  the  book  which,  too  im- 
patiently wise,  became  the  by-word  of  fools 
—these  all  have  told  us  with  one  voice 
what  we  should  strive  to  attain;  they  not 
hopeless  of  it,  but  for  our  follies  forced,  as 
it  seems,  by  heaven,  to  tell  us  only  partly 
and  in  parables,  lest  we  should  hear  them 
and  obey. 

Shall  we  never  listen  to  the  words  of 
these  wisest  of  men?  Then  listen  at  least 
to  the  words  of  your  children— let  us  in  the 
lips  of  babes  and  sucklings  find  our  strength; 
and  see  that  we  do  not  make  them  mock 
instead  of  pray,  when  we  teach  them,  night 
and  morning,  to  ask  for  what  we  believe 
never  can  be  granted;— that  the  will  of  the 
Father— which  is,  that  His  creatures  may 
be  righteous  and  happy— should  be  done, 
on  earth,  as  it  is  in  Heaven. 


387 


. 


rmm 


l^«l 


